The Dark Heart of Life
by JeffC FTW
Summary: Barbara Kane is the assistant of Herbert West in this retelling of the original tale. Dark turns are taken as the couple embarks on their unholy journey from Miskatonic Medical School to the Great War, and eventually the past comes back to haunt them...but the story does not end there.
1. Of the Past

**Here comes a departure from the movie, now officially going back to Lovecraft's original tale, althogh you will see a few references from the movie (think of it as role reverse in a way). Which means Herbert West is back to his original blond-haired, blue-eyed appearance, and the original story set in contemporary settings. And the unnamed narrator now is my OC Barbara Kane (named after Barbara Crampton), who is his college friend and his wife in later years. The more I thought about these ideas, the more irresistible they became, including a more chilling but otherwise happier end for them both. :) The beginning of that end with West getting torn to pieces by his own experiments is only the beginning, but the best is to come, and the heroine Barbara herself is along for the ride. **

**Disclaimer: The original tale doesn't belong to me, as the movies don't, but Barbara Kane-West does. :D **

Chapter One

Of the Past

I fingered the twisting diamond cross around my neck as I stood on the front steps of the house I once shared with the man my profession was shared and who I once allowed myself to be shackled to - out of love and out of fear, but overall out of scientific curiosity. This cross my mother gave to me as a little girl, telling me to always have faith and never give up on it, never give up on anything in life. As regretful as it is, I do not feel like I have faith anymore, that I abandoned it a long time ago when I first met Herbert West.

Herbert West, who was my friend in college and my husband later in life.

I looked down and stared at my left hand which held my jacket together - there was the unique golden ring he gave me the day we were married, set with three little rose-cut diamonds twinkling faintly - and shivered when his name came to mind. Once I would think of his name as admiration and love, at least early in the beginning when he introduced me to the black and forbidden realms of the unknown, all of which should _never_ have been crossed. Herbert West was no man I'd ever known in my life; he fascinated me utterly even when he clashed with the dean of the medical college we attended together, had no friends and not even a girlfriend. I was the only one who ever spoke to him and discussed his theories on the re-animation of dead tissue, and how could I have predicted where my life went when I stayed with him?

Dr. Herbert West, the love of my life who was also my science partner and colleague, has been gone for a year now, but the memory of the manner of his disappearance is worse than ever. If anyone ever heard what happened, they would not have believed me and locked me away for the rest of my life in the Sefton Psychiatric Hospital.

The crisp summer wind brushed loose strands of my long hair coming undone from my clipped bun, chilling the skin of my face, but my body was kept warm by the gold-accented black suit dress I have chosen for today. Running away from the past hasn't helped me move on. Seventeen years of living with a madman is never easy to forget. The real estate agent would be inside waiting for me, and I can't wait out here any longer. I have come here not to stand and stare at this elegant place of river stone, latticed wood and triangular rooftops; I came to settle business and reclaim this place for myself.

My polished black heels made a soft clacking up the steps as I made way for the front door, ringing the bell and waiting for awhile before it was answered. "Dr. Barbara West," the agent stated coolly as she looked me over. "Long time no see. I was beginning to think you weren't coming."

I scoffed. "Really, Mrs. Jensen, I would never not come on an important time like this. My husband, rest him, and I used to own this, or has your old age finally gotten to you?" Talking back to someone who wasn't worthy of respect was something I came to inherit from Herbert.

She snorted back as she looked me over. "I may be old, Doctor, but that doesn't mean I don't pay notice to time anymore." She stepped by to let me in. The sooner I entered the foyer, I looked around this place of hideous and wonderful memories at the same time.

The polished banisters and beams...the tiled marble floors and arched doorways...Persian carpeting over some floors...it was all so magical but so painful. This was where we lived, together, before that finall hellish night which took him from me. I'd feared him because of his methods which had changed so drastically over the years, but I still loved him. I made mistakes as I came to hate the things he did when we were supposed to be making a good cause. I mourn him more than I did then; I regret not saving him sometimes. The door closed behind me, but I paid Mrs. Jensen no mind as I reached again for the cross over my heart and remembered back when I first met Herbert West, Re-Animator.

~o~

_17 years ago_

It was at the beginning of our third year at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham, Massachusetts that I finally found the courage to speak to Herbert West, whom I had classes with but never spoke to directly. I'd known him since the first year but never had it in me to talk to him because I saw him so...intimidating. Calculating and intimidating. He never socialized with anyone that I knew of, but he was bold in speaking up for himself and against anything the professors taught, resulting in getting into trouble with the benevolent Dean Alan Halsey - benevolent, but unaccepting of the young man's theories which were wild and original; I never really took another young mind's ideas seriously because I thought the older superiors knew better, but at the same time I knew better myself, but I never spoke up out of fear of ostracization like West was.

West was a small, slender, spectacled young man in a white collared shirt, black tie and slacks, completely different from the other "gentlemen" of the campus; I could have sworn some students snickered behind his back, and he either noticed and pretended not to, or he was oblivious altogether. His hair was blond, almost more yellow than platinum, parted down the middle and flat on either side of his head, his face soft-featured but stern, and his eyes matched mine in color, piercing but so cold and petrifying. The moment I stood before him in the hallway before our next class, those eyes took me in off the bat, taking in my long brown hair in a ponytail, my denim jacket and jeans embroidered with ornate silver crosses, and finally the diamond cross from my mother, the jacket buttoned down to show it. But I think he sneered when he saw it.

"West, is it?" I managed, suddenly nervous and wondering why I was doing this.

He nodded. "Herbert West. And you must be Kane," he returned, finally allowing the ghost of a smile on his face.

"Barbara Kane," I answered, extending my hand out to him, keeping my other on my books. He shook it, but it was light and not eager. "I wanted to say that...that was amazing how you talked Dr. Halsey down." Why would I ever say that? Dean Alan Halsey was respected and loved by so many, his treatments of the ailing going all the way back two generations before I was born. And he wasn't so eager to let go of customs and old ideas. But the world was always changing, so there were always new scientific methods brought to light. Halsey was one of the last living Puritans of this planet.

West was still smiling, tightly. "Well, that wasn't something I came to expect from someone who has never...approached me before," he said as we started walking. "I'd have thought you would call me immature and vague as Halsey would, call me intolerant."

Honestly? Not exactly, but nobody seemed to know him well enough to dig deeper into the facts. "I don't know if I agree with him," I confessed, sitting down on the nearest bench with him. "I mean, he's a good man, but..."

West snorted, cutting me off. "Good man, indeed. But would a good man really fail to see reason, stop and view the matter a little more deeper?" He shook his head, reaching up to take off his glasses and clean them purely out of habit; I assumed it was because I don't think I detected a smudge. Putting them back, he went on, "Barbara, I have no doubt about him, but those old-fashioned cretins fail to see it. They refuse to see that all life is a physical and chemical process, fail to see that the so-called soul is a mere myth." I gasped when he spoke of blasphemy against the tradition of the soul of man; he frowned at my reaction. "What, you believe such frivolous nonsense?" he mocked.

"It's not that," I said quickly. "Just that...I never met anyone who wouldn't follow the dean and the other professors' shadows, cease all independent thought."

He nodded, but he didn't look like he was believing me when I was telling the truth. "I see."

Mom used to teach me that there were two sides to every person, so I had a feeling that he hid more than he was letting on right now. He was giving me the chills with that hard look he was giving me; he didn't seem to trust me, and somehow I wanted him to. I wanted to learn more about his...radical theories about the possible - impossible, in the eyes of the elders - conquering of death which landed him on the dean's bad side, see if he was as crazy as they said he was.

**I loved the idea of the protagonist returning to the place where it is obvious happened at the end of the original tale, for closure reasons, but as I said, that story is far from finished if a new narrator of my own making. ;) **

**Read and review throughout the story. Appreciate it. :)**


	2. The Howling

**Herbert's backstory is expanded along with Barbara's in this chapter, which is also sort of named after the horror classic starring Dee Wallace-Stone, a costar of Jeff Combs in "The Frighteners", one of my favorites of his, and certainly one of his best performances. :) Herbert's reasons for pursuing the path he is on now is inspired by the six-part comic series "The Chronicles of Dr. Herbert West," which also has the unnamed narrator as his lover and girlfriend in college years, ironically named Megan. :D Through her we learn a terrible tragedy when he was a boy, and we do now through Barbara. **

**Once more, I own nothing but Barbara. Enjoy!**

Chapter Two

The Howling

I had a scholarship up and on the way by my third year, at the time I first met Herbert West. I had very few friends myself but never a boyfriend; I was never interested in going out to parties or dating, because I had dreams of becoming a doctor and saving lives; I even did part-time work in the ER. Going for the goal required absolute dedication, which was exactly what I shared with him. I thought about saving love and marriage for afterwards when the goal was achieved, but I didn't know about West's view on that at the time. I was too focused on hearing his theories about the re-animation of the dead to even realize that until later.

"As I've said before," he said one day over lunch, some weeks after our first meeting, "all life is physical and chemical, leaving God out of this. We began via evolution and will continue to do so, but the issue is that humanity is too dependent on it." He shook his head and poked at the mashed potatoes - which I always thought was among one of my favorite parts of the food - out of zoning habit. "But biological development is beside the point. No doctor before our time has gone beyond the boundaries of simply finding new methods to preserve life. Electricity in the charging of paddles to get the heart going again, the brain remaining alive for a period of time via machine before the plug is pulled, or it being too late in the emergency room before the man or woman could be saved...it's all overwhelming. Wouldn't you want to bypass that?" His blue eyes drilled into mine expectantly, and I thought I'd melt under them, turn into a puddle from the heat that burned my cheeks.

Wait, wait - what? Am I getting a crush on him now or something? "Nothing more," I answered. "I lost my father when I was eight. He had a tumor in his kidneys that the doctor said it was impossible to get a donor in time. He passed away four months later, and it was just me and her after that." I felt like I was going to cry when I remembered how Mom broke down in devastation in the hospital beside Dad's beside, and me with her, my father telling us both it would be alright when we knew it wouldn't. Now I would never have him walk me down the aisle if I ever decide to get married.

West's face was expressionless. "My condolences." He didn't sound so sympathetic, but his eyes were soft now.

"What about you?" I asked without thinking, taking him by surprise before he became serious again.

"My background is my own business," he said firmly, "but I suppose I owe you for your side, which should tell you enough as to why I don't believe in God as you and everyone else does." I reached up to finger the cross around my neck again at the profane speech, making him chuckle. "I was a boy when my mother and younger sister were hit by a bus after we left mass one Sunday. We were a devout religious family, but it ended for me the day they died. My sister was six, only two years younger than I then, and she was more than ready to leave for home when she ran ahead of us, and my mother went to retrieve her only for them both to wind up in the middle of the street...only for the city bus to come out of nowhere and paint the road red." His eyes twinkled without any humor, no trace of emotion in his voice. Just composed and speaking it as it was. No tears either.

My heart was cracking as I tried not to cry any harder than I was. He'd lost his mother and sister at the same age I was when I lost my dad. That I understood which supported his views on overcoming death's barriers, and the idea of a God not existing? He must have decided that there was no God in existence after that, because on a day like Sunday of all days, how could He be so cruel to take two of the most important people in his life from him? "I'm so sorry," I croaked, grabbing the napkin and dabbing my eyes. "That...makes us both. Losing our family at age eight," I said, trying to smile before I found it too hard. He managed one, though it wasn't warm as I wanted to.

"It certainly does. It serves our purposes. I believe it's the start of a possible friendship between us."

I almost choked on my juice. "F-friends?"

"Of course. We _are_ friends now, aren't we, Barbara?" That smile broadened by the slightest, and it was starting to creep my nerves out. "You're the first I ever spoke to in years, the first who takes me seriously. You don't belong in a crowd yourself, yet you chose to talk to me, listen to me. That's what friends and eventual partners do, don't they?"

I chewed my lip and nodded, though I wondered if this whole friendship thing wasn't being hurried into. But it had taken three years to finally talk to this man and for the last few weeks being around him nonstop, getting looks from everyone around me, lately discussing his death theories and finally confessing our early losses. "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

"Does this mean I should ask if you're ready for the first...testing phase?"

I had no idea what he meant by "testing phase" before he clarified, leaning in and whispering into my ear, his hot breath sending shivers through my nerves: "The first human body for my re-agent."

~o~

_Present_

"Your husband didn't believe in God, did he, Doctor?"

I was interrupted from my memories by the older woman and turned to my side to give a crooked smile. "Not as much as I. A true doctor never believes in this, though I sometimes wonder if there really is a God around," I admitted. She was a devout Christian herself, so I anticipated her response, letting loose my cherished cross and following her into the kitchen. The opulent mahogany surroundings reminded me of the old English era, updated with marble countertops and a durable steel refrigerator/freezer. It was all the same as I remembered it, nothing changed. I would always be the one to take care of the house whenever he didn't need me, but it wasn't so glamorous when the wife took care of the house and the husband worked so much.

"I suppose you're right, given the common factor is that we're all going to die anyways," Mrs. Jensen agreed, though I detected she wholeheartedly and secretly disagreed. "Would you care for a drink and we discuss the papers?" she asked, walking over to the china cabinet where the oldest fine Scotch was in its crystal decanter. I could really use a drink right now, but I didn't want to end up so lightheaded I could pass out right now. But most of all, I didn't want to wind up spilling the truth about what happened here and long before then. I nodded, and she filled two little brandy glasses, handing one to me.

"It really is a shame," Mrs. Jensen said, changing the topic on me, which annoyed me to no end, "that a couple with no children could ever live here, but I suppose it fitted two retired physicians after the war was over." She narrowed her beady little eyes at me. "You teach classes at the medical school now, don't you?"

I nodded. I'd been retired for two years now, accepting a position at Miskatonic in the emergency room and helping interns with bright futures as I had been so long ago, but every time blood was spilled and the heart stopping, I would feel mine doing the same, reminding me of that horrible night as well as the one that started it all. Beginning with the secret experiment in the wee hours of the night and the terror in the dark.

~o~

_17 years ago_

For the next month - by now it was mid-November of 1998 - Herbert showed me various tests of his re-animating solution created from ingredients he stowed away secretly from the university, and it was on a number of rabbits, cats, dogs and guinea pigs. He'd killed them himself, which horrified me to an extent. I always thought killing wrong on so many levels, and I loved animals enough to never want to harm them. I thought animal testing unethical on so many levels, not counting being told over and over by Dean Halsey, my mother, and every other teacher I had in life.

West, however, snorted and brushed it off. "Animals are perfect for a test," he'd stated casually the first time, which was a dead stray beagle he'd found in the streets that afternoon. "Biologically, they are like us humans, yet their lives are lesser than ours, which is why they are perfect for testing before moving onto an actual human being. It would be fallacious to expose a human being to the effects without proper testing on an inhuman creature firsthand."

I'd been living with my mother the whole time I was in school, granted we lived near the campus, and so did West. I told her out of the blue that I'd decided to get out on my own now and it shocked her that it was to be with a classmate she never knew about before, so yeah she was a little hesitant and suspicious, but we were always so close and understanding that she accepted that I had to grow up. She made me promise to keep in touch with her, and I did. So now, I was sharing a house with West which had a basement, for him to practice his experiments. He'd originally done it in front of Dr. Halsey and the other professors, but they were so sickening that the dean banned him from performing these ungodly studies, threatening expulsion if he ever did this again.

"They didn't understand at all, years of wisdom blinding what's really in front of them," Herbert had spat when he finally decided to confide in me. "But I know once I perfect this solution and the subject makes it through, they'll come crawling on their knees begging for forgiveness." His smile was chilling and reaching his eyes. Now, suddenly, despite the cold feeling I was having, I felt like I wanted to kiss him for his determination and bravery. I blinked; where did that come from?

"Now, for the implant of the re-agent," he murmured; we at at the long wooden table under the sun lamp, the dead canine on its side for him to pick up the needle filled with his re-agent - I had never seen anything like that before, because it was glowing neon green, nothing like any medicine you would see every day in life. I couldn't help but stare at it, goggle-eyed like a child seeing stars, in spite of myself. He didn't seem to pay attention though, instead focusing on putting the needle into the back of the neck, where the spinal cord was. The spinal cord was attached to the brain and served as the transmitter of nerves throughout the body. I moved closer to him, grabbing his arm and holding on tight, anxious and excited at the same time.

I received a lunge at as soon as the animal came to life, getting a vicious claw to my right cheek, but West pulled it off and threw it off and away from us. The pain of the tender flesh of my cheek ripped and bleeding gooey red was immense, but no more than the undead canine attacking us now; thankfully, Herbert was prepared and grabbed a shovel, whacking it stunned and bringing it down on the poor creature until it was a furry red mess and unrecognizable. I felt like crying because of that, ignoring the sticky heat that was my bleeding cheek. I slowly stood and grabbed onto Herbert, holding onto him because I really needed to. He dropped the shovel and wrapped his arms around me in return.

"Aw, come now," he crooned gently, rocking me back and forth. "The worse and far greater is to come.

~o~

Since Dean Halsey debarred him from public experiments - as well as the lack of access to corpses in the morgue; I couldn't get Herbert in without us being discovered despite my own access of bringing bodies in after failed operations - Herbert and I had no choice but to decide on the potter's field, intact since the 1870s but used for those who either wronged or were of less meaning, sometimes having no families to claim. That was the purpose whenever the college morgue became too full for storage. I'd made the suggestion of the potter's field because where else could it be? Beyond it lay the old deserted Chapman farmhouse, which hadn't been inhabited for years, and seemed fit for us to set up our secret laboratory instead of his house now. Herbert was over the moon at my "genius suggestion" and decided we begin work soon after midnight.

It was the next night after the incident with the vicious re-animated beagle. I was wearing a gray sweatshirt, black leggings and sneakers, my hair in a ponytail again, when I accompanied him with our flashlights and shovels to the potter's field when we learned of the perfect case of our first human specimen. A young construction worker had drowned on the job; the construction of a pond side home was in the making when the making of the deck ended in a freak accident, the pieces collapsing on top of him and killing him underwater despite the best attempts at rescue by his coworkers. He'd been buried at expense without delay and embalming for organ donation. Herbert thought it ironic because it was like Fate set them up. The school's laboratory was no place for us to begin what he knew what we were destined for, beyond the everyday life of ordinary doctors, because of the single-minded old men who were in charge because of credentials.

The night was cold, but there was no wind. Herbert and I took my car to the deserted field which actually held more than meets the eye. My heart was thundering with anticipation because this was the first time I would disturb the grave of an eternally resting person. Mom said grave robbing was a sin against heaven, disturbing the person who suffered enough pain. But Herbert didn't see it that way. "Science requires pushing limits," he explained while we shoveled aside earth and grass, the pressure getting to my arms but I didn't complain. "This is our first chance, and who knows when the next would come along."

He'd said this when finally there was the sound of iron striking against wood; we'd finally reached the coffin after what felt like hours of digging. Finishing the job off, we dusted off the last of the earth before together opening the lid of the coffin and bestowing the face of the first human body I'd seen outside school. He was brawny, brown-haired, young and fit if only the accident hadn't taken him so soon. I helped Herbert haul the big guy out since his slighter body build couldn't do it alone; the body was still too heavy for the both of us, but we managed to get him out. My car was a few feet away from us, and we hauled the corpse into the backseat since the trunk wasn't large enough. I started the engine just as Herbert spoke softly as he turned behind him to gaze once again at our prize.

"Just think that if this works, we'll be hailed, and we'll be on the cover of the Nobel Prize of science."

It was a dream too good to be true, but I had to concentrate on driving us to the old farmhouse beyond. It was like one of those haunted houses you would find in Halloween photographs, dark and desolate, giving off that indescribable feeling of paranoia and doom, never knowing what was truly inside until you found out for yourself, and by then it was too late. The windows had all the curtains closed tight, the glass themselves sealed and preventing anyone from breaking in. The lab table of test tubes and glassware were set up, and another for the young man's corpse which we lay down and Herbert withdrew the needle of the serum he'd made already; if this didn't work, then it was a good thing we came prepared for the making of a new elixir and a change in the formula.

He injected the solution into the brain once again, the dose being twenty CCs, but sadly after a few minutes of waiting, he sighed in disappointment with me when the body gave no sign of life. The eyelids didn't open, the lips didn't twitch, the chest didn't heave any breaths, the limbs didn't stir...nothing. "Inadequate," Herbert said without any breath. "I don't know if it is the formula or if this fellow isn't fresh enough."

I thought maybe the latter was the case, because he'd made it loud and clear that it had to be exceedingly crisp, but I said instead, "Or maybe the formula might be it. I think chances are we might bring him back tonight if we try a change."

He looked up to me and smiled. "Smart thinking. Better now than later, let the tissues degenerate more than they are."

We left the body on the table as it was and began at work on the new mixing. The only source of light we had in our lab were the fire of the Bunsen burner as well as our flashlights given the electricity hadn't been turned on for years. Things were quiet for now, between us and not one sound from the thing on the table - until the whole room was aroused with an unexpected cycle of frantic howls that made me scream and drop the beaker of mixing that sizzled on the floor. Herbert grabbed my arm and pulled me with him when we both turned around and saw the man who had been dead on the table, now flailing about the room and not even noticing us, but the crazed cries it let out warned us we had to get out of here now and soon.

"Barbara, the window!" Herbert shouted as we leaped away from the lab table and for one of the windows nearby, hastily unbolting the glass and throwing it open; he tossed me outside first and followed, our flashlights in hand, and I frantically searched my sweatshirt pockets for my keys and found them, getting us into my car just in time and driving away from the site of our secret laboratory and our first success of a revived corpse.

We were back at the house in a matter of time. "We have to make sure it didn't see us," Herbert said suddenly as I pulled us into the driveway.

I frowned at him. "I don't think it noticed us enough to follow us here." I'd watched the rear mirror sometime to know that; the monster didn't trail us anywhere, much less find any conscious thought of its own to get out through a window. My prediction was that the old Chapman place would burn to the ground in a matter of time because of the flammable chemicals the creature would knock over. I wouldn't call it a man anymore because no living human would ever behave the way it did.

Herbert scowled and shrugged off his coat. "Perhaps not, but I wouldn't be too sure of it." Then his face changed with the speed of a whiplash into a broad smile. "But we did it! We brought him back! We've gone off to a good start." I half-agreed with him, but because of the scare we got out of ourselves tonight, I wasn't in any hurry to do this again anytime soon. My heart was racing too much, I felt like I was going to pass out from shock, and I wanted nothing more than to sleep the rest of the day off, disregard class completely. Herbert frowned at my suggestion before he nodded wordlessly. So it was decided to put off any experiments for awhile, take the day off so we could rest the day away.

However, by the afternoon, there was the brief paragraph in the paper detailing the old deserted Chapman farm burning mysteriously during the night into a large heap of ashes, as I predicted. But there was also an attempt to disturb a grave in the potter's field, but it was not by a shovel.

The earth bore the most depraved of clawing marks by bare hands. But how could a human being do such a deed?

"I doubt a human would do this," Herbert said, shaking his head and tossing the paper down on the kitchen table. I watched him pace back and forth, but it seemed he was rather trying to keep himself from flipping out instead of simply calmly trying to come up with an explanation. I said nothing to him as I picked up the paper and moved to prepare lunch for us both. Little did I know this was the way he would be for the next seventeen years after this, and he would always look over his shoulder and complain that an unseen pair of footsteps were following us everywhere we would go.


	3. More Than Friends

**So far, this story is fun to do, staying true to Lovecraft's story and multiple references I don't have in me to change for obvious reasons, and Barbara is a really interesting character by far. :) The battle of Flanders in part five "The Horror from the Shadows" set during the first World War is brought up to date even though Canada has had no recent troubles, but it seems befitting given today's events. Barbara dwells briefly on it before it will be expanded much later on. She also brings Herbert to meet her mother in this chapter, and it is during this time their relationship begins to expand, though it will take some more time before it's more than just friendship. **

Chapter Three

More Than Friends

_Present Day_

I finished the last of my Scotch by the time Mrs. Jensen finally brought out the papers from her purse. Her eyes narrowed slightly as they surveyed me. "Do tell me again: why do you really wish to return to this house following the event of your husband's disappearance?" she asked suspiciously.

I chewed my lip nervously as I took the pen and papers to read over first. "To find closure," I stated simply.

"That's what you said. But really."

Her persistence snapped my patience thread. "I've told you exactly. What more do you need to know?" Herbert taught me long ago that arrogance keeps people from asking anymore questions, even though very few are able to sense something amiss without solid proof, yet it also distanced people from you. And I was nervous about things blowing up on the first day back. My agent looked at me reproachfully.

"The moment I first laid my eyes on you both, I thought there was something rather fishy. So to learn about last year when the maid came here and found you unconscious in the basement and your husband missing, not one trace of him as though he was never there. No sign of forced entry, no DNA traces, no known perps. Nothing. Rather questionable, don't you think?"

She was so close to being right, but I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. "It certainly is, but I really don't remember what happened much other than before that, it was midnight when I'd set up the security of this place, and for all we knew it could have been late night trouble, that it scared us both that we retreated to the basement to hide afterwards." But the truth was far more hideous than that. And the police would never know because they would never have believed it.

Nor would they ever have believed the true story of Dr. Herbert West.

~o~

_16 years ago_

After the experience with the corpse from the potter's field, Herbert did drop his researches for some months that passed by, but that didn't stop him from obsessing as always and planning. And then out of the blue, by the twentieth of March which was the first day of spring, he made the decision to return to Dr. Halsey and plea for the use of the universty dissecting room and return to his shunned experiments. I was on my way to the dean's office to discuss the scholarship when I heard the shouting match once more.

"Mr. West, I warned you -"

"Warned me against illegal experimentation, but I've really made a breakthrough, Doctor!" Herbert countered. "I had help from a friend outside the school and really need to use the dissecting room so I can further develop it. If only you, the revered dean and kind benefactor everyone knows, would just listen and see what's really in front of you -!" I held my breath when Halsey lashed out and sent Herbert stalking out furiously.

"ENOUGH! I know exactly what's in front of me, and it's nothing more of an immature young man whose delusional state can't see the limitations of the professor-doctor type. If you were in my position in more years to come, which lies on the line at the present with your insanity, you would understand. I'm surprised you even made it this far and will be graduating this year. Now get out of my office before I write you an expulsion letter."

I almost decided to turn on my heels and run because I knew that I hated Dean Alan Halsey at the present for his treatment of Herbert, whose blue eyes were burning and his mouth in a tight line as he left the dean's office and wanted to take his frustrations out on anything in front of him. I would calm him down myself after I left this place. I knocked on the door, the dean calling me to come in, his voice tight. He'd been scowling, now smiling when he saw me. "Ah, Barbara, just the one I wanted to see."

"About my scholarship," I answered sweetly, angrily wishing I could shoot him myself for talking Herbert down the way he did.

"I have the letter of recommendation written for you given how great you've been in such a short amount of time and your exceptionality in the ER. We have very few every year or _any _time who do that. I can see you standing on the podium on graduation day walking away with that scholarship in hand, doing great things with your career." His eyes darkened then. "But I worry about your friendship with Herbert West."

I was tempted to reach and finger my cross again, but he would notice my anxiety. "I assure you, my friendship with Mr. West hasn't affected me in any way."

He nodded. "Just keep an eye on him, then. The reason I let him stay is because he's one of our few best and brightest by far. But in all my years, I've seen the best and brightest take a fall off the cliff when they start to act like they're better and fresher than us."

The way he spoke was so egotistical, and I hated those people. I decided to change the topic. "Well, sir, now that we have this aside, I would love to move on talking about the scholarship."

He was pleased that I boldly moved on from the unwanted Herbert West topic, but when we were finished, I was more than ready to find Herbert and discuss with him us going to meet my mom during Spring Break. He wasn't exactly excited, but I wanted him to go. "Family business is our own," he said coolly.

"It is, but Mom has been wanting to meet you," I insisted. "She keeps saying 'Barbara, when are you bringing your new boyfriend over?'" He glowered at me when I laughed. "Come on, when was the last time you were doing something not work-related?"

He didn't answer me at first. "Since the end of high school," he said vaguely. Herbert lost his mother and sister at an early age, so what about a father? "We don't get along," he answered when I asked him. "He took to drinking and no more mass afterwards. I would be away at the hospital with my aunt, his sister, who was a doctor there and took my under her guidance. She helped me get into medical school, but then she moved away before I finished high school. And I haven't seen or spoken to my father since."

I was too stunned to answer; what could I say? I grew up with a single mom who loved and supported me, and that was different from an alcoholic father. I worried that the then innocent and young Herbert suffered bruises and broken bones until he was free to be on his own. I moved closer to him, in spite of myself, and wrapped my arms around his neck for a hug, drawing him closer to me.

"Barbara?" He was surprised and bewildered, like he'd never had anything like this happen to him before, not since his mother was killed, so his arms clumsily wrapped around my waist in an attempt to return it. He turned his face into my neck and gently whiffed my perfume, which had white peach tea, honeysuckle and musk. I thought it really sweet that he was new to all of this, but it also hurt to know he had no idea how to love anyone. I'm talking about the way my mom loves me and I love her...and me wanting to love another the way she and Dad used to.

~o~

My mother was Catherine Kane. She was forty-two years old, brown-haired and blue-eyed like me, though years of raising an only daughter and few boyfriends who came and went did things to her once beautiful face and her high spirits. I've done everything I could to support her since she could barely take care of herself on her own nowadays, and she was recently laid off from her job at the department store.

It was the first day of Spring Break when I, in a refreshingly sherbert-colored dress, arrived to the home I was born and grew up. It was two-story, no words to describe its perfection on the outside and inside. The garage door opened up for me to drive in front but not go inside because Mom's Porsche in the way. Herbert regarded it with a simple "Mmm, not bad. Certainly better than my birthplace." That was the first time he spoke since we left the house. Herbert obviously was never looking forward to anything else besides obsessing over the work. I was disappointed in him at the moment; all he ever cared about was the work he regarded overwhelmingly important above anything else, which he could have conducted in later years but which he wished to begin while still in the university. We were near the end of our undergraduate terms, and I was surprised Dean Halsey didn't expel him sooner despite numerous threats.

"Life's not all about the work, you know," I told him as I shut off the engine. "There's so much fun out there."

"Oh, is there?" He raised a thin blond brow at me. "Do tell me your definition of fun. You hardly go out as I don't."

"I might not leave for parties, but that doesn't mean I don't know what fun is," I said. "We're going to be here all week, so might as well take some time off from dead bodies, hypodermic needles, and a certain life-giving green serum." Oh, _now _he looked at me, giving me a sideways glare.

"Fine," he said simply. "But I'm only doing this for you."

I laughed and got out of the car with him. "Oh, if you pretend having fun, you might have some by accident," I said just as my mother was coming out of the house through the opened garage. "Hi, Mom!" I yelled out. I hadn't seen her since Christmas, since I was too busy with Herbert to see her much anymore, but then again growing up meant not seeing your parents much anymore.

"Barbara, my baby!" she squealed, hurrying over and taking my face in both hands. "I haven't seen you since Christmas. I think we're finally growing apart now," she said sadly.

I couldn't believe she would say such a thing. "Mom, I'm growing up now, but that doesn't mean we're not a family anymore. This is what growing up is about. I know you did that when you left home and met Dad."

She sniffled and nodded, trying not to cry. "Yeah, you're right, baby." Then her attention moved past my shoulder. "Oh, you must be Herbert. I'm Catherine, and _please_ call me Catherine," she said with a light-hearted laugh. "Mrs. Kane is too formal."

He cleared his throat and smiled. "Catherine it is. Pleasure to meet you." He accepted her hand and shook it gently. "Please, come in, you two. I made lunch for everyone. I know you both have a lot to tell me, and graduation coming up." She burst into proud giggles when she led us both inside. It was so wonderful and surreal being home. I sometimes wondered if I still did the right thing leaving my mom to fend for herself. But if she were dead by now, I'd truly regret it then.

She made grilled cheese and tomato soup for us all, and Herbert and I were having a great time telling her everything about school - except a certain secret no one would ever know but us. And it was then on the radio that I heard a certain song that Mom had been gushing over a new release over and had to convince me to listen to that I immediately fell in love with, and made her laugh when I convinced Herbert to dance with me to.

_Sometimes I run_

_Sometimes I hide_

_Sometimes I'm scared of you_

_But all I really want is to hold you tight_

_Treat you right, be with you day and night_

_Baby, all I need is time_

We both stopped laughing - well, I was laughing mostly, and he was disbelieved that I'd made him do something he wasn't into. Mom was laughing at the table; Herbert's cheeks were flushed read with humiliation, though I could see he was trying not to smile. "Not bad for my first time, but this does NOT mean I'll be doing this all the time," he promised me.

"It reminds me of us," I told him softly, so Mom wouldn't hear, however I knew she was detecting something about us she would wait until Herbert wasn't around to pester me over, but what do you expect from a mother? The song really did speak to me, in so many ways which paralleled to what I felt. I felt a little unnerved around Herbert at times, but really, I wanted to be with him and do this one thing with him: conquer death, and once that was done, maybe there was a time for us.

Conquering death, in reality, would require a lifetime of research.

**Barbara's mom is named after Jeff's daughter, Catherine Combs. :) She's an actress, though I'm unsure if she's still acting today, and I remember him mentioning in an interview she had a scene with Jennifer Garner in "13 Going on 30", a film I haven't seen in years but loved. Dad must be proud. :) **

**The song is "Sometimes" by Britney Spears. One of my childhood favorites. :D **


	4. Epidemic Evil

**Here comes the infamous typhoid plague, which I had the pleasure of bringing to life, also, in "Raptured in Re-Animation. :D Tragedy suffered once again, but it's more impactful since it is someone near and dear to our heroine here. :(**

Chapter Four

Epidemic Evil

So, by June of 1999, Herbert and I graduated and got our degrees - I got my scholarship, too - but we weren't licensed doctors just yet for a few more years. But we could get employment now with our doctrines since we were both finished with school. My mom was crying and taking our pictures on that day, hugging and kissing us both much to Herbert's embarrassment, though I could see that he was pleased she did.

"We made it," I said as soon as it was just us, away from everyone and near one of the trees which blocked the view. I thought we needed the privacy because of what I had wanted so long to try out with him but never had the chance to do. "We're finally getting away from this place as students. We're going to be doctors someday soon."

He smiled then, his eyes shining, but the resistence was in his tone. "Yes, indeed, but there is still work to be done here. We'll be here for the summer or for how long it takes. Guaranteed it won't be forever."

"No, it won't," I agreed. "There's still so much work to do...and something I've waited long enough to give to you."

Herbert lifted a brow. "And what is that?"

I leaned up and kissed him full on the lips instead of speaking myself. To finally kiss him washed me with the feel of a waterfall - cool and refreshing, but also jolting with the pain of chills. I was chilled to the bone and to my heart mostly because I was afraid of how he would react verbally. His whole body tensed, shocked by the boldness and unused to PDA as everyone else called it. But he brought his hands up to cup my face when we drifted apart. He didn't say anything to me, his blue eyes still shining, telling me he'd been wanting to do that to. I figured because he was such a genius the work came above everything else, glad I made the move when he was too shy to be the leading man. I giggled softly and shared another kiss with him before a throat was cleared behind us.

"Well, well, lovebirds finally, eh?"

"Dr. Halsey, ah-hm," I said, doing the honors. "Sorry, sir." I looked down in embarrassment, his reassuring laugh not making me feel better.

"No, that's alright, you two. I just wanted to say that I look forward to you two being here for awhile longer before everyone misses you. Well, almost everyone," he said with the look to Herbert before nodding curtly and leaving us alone. Herbert snorted and shook his head.

"The fool will stop speaking to me like that someday soon," he said softly, dangerously. "Hopefully soon enough. He's haunted our every steps long enough, and to think of how he finally realizes how blind he was," he added with the secret smile that sent shivers up my back. I really began to feel like our relationship was getting to be more than just science partners and friends even though we never talked about it, not much since Spring Break with Mom.

Speaking of Mom, she took us out to dinner, where we celebrated and just talked about other things that weren't medicine-related, once again. There were times Herbert wasn't exactly interested in whatever Mom said but did his best to pretend he was. He did admit to me he adored my mom, but "not everything unrelated to medical science is always fascinating", as he put it.

We went home later that evening, just him and I for the remainder of the day, and that was when he grabbed me and pulled me in for another kiss. I burst out giggling and put my hands against his chest out of habit, not really wanting to push him away, but he ended it early anyways. "It's your fault I did this just now, Barbara," he told me, his smirk joking but his tone serious. I tried to think of how to respond to that but had no idea how to. I wanted to take it to the next level but knew it was too soon. We'd known each other for three years - well, less than a year since we never spoke before then - and I didn't want either of us regretting rushing into a real commitment.

But in the following month, the whole town was down struck with the dreaded typhoid itself.

This is the one summer I will never forget, either, for the next sixteen years that would pass. The scourge, sent from hell, stalked through Arkham like the Devil himself, taking every life without mercy. It was also through this summer I lost someone so precious to me...and another loss which Herbert shook himself up after so long of trying to convince he was making a breakthrough in medical science, but led to a brutal conclusion after the plague. A horror known to me alone now that Herbert West had vanished, tied with the Sefton asylum mishap.

Like I said before, Herbert and I didn't have our medical licenses yet, but since we were the best and brightest and out of school now, as well as making the decision to stay in the summer for more work before moving somewhere else afterwards, we were among those who aided the stricken, the numbers terrifyingly high far worse than the swine flu. I felt my mind and body stressing over how many dead and were taken to Christchurch Cemetery, burials made without embalming for donors or anything, but Herbert did not handle this any better than I did.

"So, here we are," he said to me one day, shaking his head, his scowl evident beneath his mouth mask. His eyes were glittering with rage. "We have so many fresh specimens, but none for the work! I suppose we shouldn't be surprised we will EVER get one in this mess." His temper was losing fast; I hated seeing him this way. Herbert had been angry before but never at me; irritated sometimes, but never verbally or physically angry with me. I thought about biting my tongue on this before deciding against it.

"But maybe the one _will _come," I said, to which he scoffed.

"Oh, really? Do tell me, how?"

"Mr. West, Miss Kane! We got a new one here!"

~o~

_Present Day_

"What you say is nothing but mere speculation," I said coldly to Mrs. Jensen, more than ready for her to leave now so I could have the rest of the evening to myself in this house. "This town is known for so many urban legends and ghost stories, but superstitious nonsense. My husband was shady, kept to himself, but he was a good man." If only that was wholly true. Herbert had his flaws, but I still loved and believed in him, though there were times I actually wanted to leave before my heart was closed around with the icy fear of making a dreadful mistake. If I'd left him, he would have been killed by one of his own experiments without me there to help him.

The agent scowled at me. "Very well. Be as it is, but I've seen so many mysteries in life, seen so many things nobody understands. I know you and him were hiding something, but I dare not pry because I know too well to never get in to deep and cost my own life."

I hissed angrily, gripping the pen and wanting to snap it, stain my flesh with the black ink. Stain it as my heart and memory were forever stained by the memories. "What, you think I'll kill you to protect whatever secrets I'm hiding?" I sneered. My marriage to Dr. West had changed me more and more over the years.

Mrs. Jensen stood and shook her head. "Of course not. But while I may not be able to prove it, find out what happened, I know." She took the papers from me and stuff them into a folder and into her purse, snapping it closed. "I'll be back tomorrow morning for the finalization, and then you can start packing and bringing your things over here before the month is over." Her eyes narrowed. "You'll be staying here for the night?" I nodded. Her lip curled. "It disturbs me to know you wish to relive the painful memories for one night here."

Oh, if only she knew.

~o~

_16 years ago_

"Mom," I gasped, looking over the newest patient who had been announced. Herbert stood by me impassively, as he could ever be. There she was, the only family I had left, wearing the light blue nightgown of a patient, her brunette hair stringy and in a ponytail, sweating and shaking uncontrollably. I should have expected this coming, tried not to, had the damned vaccinations not come in just yet.

Her eyes were glazing when they settled on us in the doorway. "Yeah, baby, it's me," she croaked out, reaching out feebly. I rushed to her side and held it, risking myself to get the influenza. "Aw, now, don't cry," she crooned when I let loose a tear, fearing for her life. How could I not? She was my mother, the woman who gave birth to me and raised me. I could not - _would not _\- lose her now.

"Mama," I choked out. "We tried getting the vaccinations in; they're hard to get through, and so many people have stricken so fast before they could get it..."

"But we'll do everything we can." Dr. Halsey stood in the doorway, behind Herbert. "Mrs. Kane, you're going to be fine," he promised, even though he doubted it because so many were dead despite his wholehearted energy he put into helping them. But he was determined as much as Herbert and I - well, all Herbert could think of were whether or not we would get a subject finally - to do everything he could to fight the typhoid plague.

I turned to look back at my mom's face. Her skin had a mild yellow hint to the cheeks, the bags under her eyes, and her once shining eyes dull as storm clouds. I wanted to cry more, but I had to be strong so I could save her as I was trying to do the same to everyone else. Dean Halsey did the same, taking matters into his own hands which the other doctors, graduates, and students were too afraid to do because of the danger abroad; Herbert admired everything the dean, his gentle enemy, did for the safety of others, risking his own life in the process. But while, before the month of July in 1999 ended, the dean was worshipped as the fearless savior of the town, I suffered the most tremendous loss of my lifetime, beginning during the plague but before the terror in the streets which eclipsed it.

My mother, Catherine, died on the twenty-eighth of July. She would have been forty-three next month.

I don't remember acknowledging much of anything, but I know for sure my body hurt from crying so much and blubbering nonsense to Herbert and Dr. Halsey when I was a grown woman now. Herbert said nothing as he was known to do, just hold me in his arms while Dr. Halsey consoled me and told me he was sorry for my loss, and that arrangements would be made just for me. "You both can go ahead and take her to the autopsy room for now, away from this mess, keep her spared from the others," he told us.

Herbert curtly thanked him and helped me stand. "Please, keep it together," he urged me as he handed me some water and Aspirin for my migraine. "We finally got it. Your mother is the chance we have."

I was shocked that he decided to use Mom as THE ONE. But everything was so disorganized and nobody was paying us any attention, though the dean did give us permission to take her away from here, so it was now or never. Mom wasn't getting any fresher than she was; I wanted her back in our lives if this solution worked. If she survived this, then Dean Halsey would be amazed and hail us, then maybe this would work on anymore of the patients who gave in to the scourge... "Don't be thinking ahead of yourself, Barbara," Herbert warned as he sucked out the syringe's amount. "Remember we haven't had much luck with formula and the freshness."

The autopsy room was empty for now, but we didn't have much time. Who knew when Halsey or anyone else would enter. I hesitantly drew the sheet from the face of my mother; like the one from the potter's field, she looked more like she was sleeping than she was dead. An eternal rest she would never awake from...until now. I prayed to God to let her come through, fingering the cross again, ignoring the snide remark from Herbert. "God has nothing to do with this, sweet. Man does this." He held up his blazing green needle when he spoke, shoving my hand away so he could take her head and lift it up, sticking the needle into her neck.

I waited with him, until the evitable happened. I was on the verge of screaming happily loud enough for the whole school and hospital to hear. Mom actually opened her eyes, the blues vivid but not displaying the emotions I was expecting her to. She didn't seem to acknowledge me or Herbert, said no words, just stared up at the ceiling with a petrified expression. Her mouth was opened but no words came out; instead, she was gasping and uttering wordless noises of fright and...pain? Her hands rose up, shaking uncontrollably when the muscles contracted, trying to live again.

"Mom!" I leaned over her face, hoping it would get her attention. "Mom, look at me. It's me, Barbara, your daughter! Mom, do you remember?!"

I got no answer, not even a blink - and then my mother collapsed again into the irreversible repose once more. She was gone now, gone for sure this time. I wanted to scream to the heavens, to God for taking her away from me. I was making a grave mistake, sinning myself to hell, but Herbert's words of wisdom returned to remind me that everything was natural and scientific, not spiritual and idyllic. I lowered my head numbly when I drew the sheet back over my mother's again-peaceful face; I wouldn't see her again until the funeral. Or maybe not, because by then - however much longer the typhoid would last - she would be rotten by then, enough for a closed casket, which I would never see her face before burial.

Herbert shook his head, putting the needle away. "She didn't deserve this."

"No, she didn't," I agreed, throat strained.

The door opened then, making us both jump. Dean Halsey stood there again, frowning at us both. "I was wondering what was keeping you both so long." His beady eyes landed on the covered corpse of my mother. "Taking your time to grieve, Miss Kane?" I nodded wordlessly. "Plenty of time for that later, as much as I offer my condolences, but there are others who need you both now."

We were out of there by then, Herbert scowling and shaking his head. "Bastard," he muttered. "Damn him. He almost caught us." His arm wrapped around my waist to pull me closer to him. "Better wise to not repeat that mistake again," he swore to me.

I struggled with speaking of Mom like an experiment instead of a human being; that was just how it was to me. "Why didn't she make it...unlike the last one?" Given the old Chapman place burned and could have taken our guy with it, but then there was the molested grave. We never encountered it, but Herbert would always look out the window at night, check the locks on the door and the windows, keep the garage locked as well as the car. Everything was on security, but it was mostly Herbert fearing for his own sanity and life. He was calm, but he didn't fool me in the anxiety department.

"The hot summer air doesn't favor the dead," was all he said before we joined the mass hysteria.

**Up next: the post-epidemic horror itself. (chilling smile) **


	5. The Beastly Outbreak

**Nothing to say, other than enjoy. **

Chapter Five

The Beastly Outbreak

I awoke one Tuesday morning in the beginning of August with a pounding headache. My body was aching, too, and I could barely move. Herbert was knocking on my door, calling my name, but I barely heard him. "H-Herbert..." I croaked out, my throat hoarse and sore. I felt parched, needing some water. I knew what was wrong with me then; I had the typhoid!

The door flew open. Herbert was mostly dressed, missing his tie, though, and his face was tight. "I'll call the hospital right away and get you in." The numbers of the ailing were lessening more and more everyday, always striking without warning like it did to me. I didn't want to die when I barely started living my life.

"Herbert...don't let me die," I whispered, angry at being weak. He shook his head as he walked over and put his hand on mine.

"I won't," he promised.

I was confined to bed rest then, Herbert mustering all his energy to handle both me and the other patients, and Dean Halsey the same. Herbert grew all the more haggard as the days passed by, his skin getting whiter from energy drained, and Dr. Halsey worse than him mostly because of his old age. He couldn't seem to stop himself from collapsing with physical fatigue and exhaustion; the plague was getting to him, too, but not the way it got to me. Years and years of risking his health and life for others was finally wearing him to the bones.

The sickness reached its end by the middle of August, on the fourteenth. I would have died, but Fate spared me. Herbert was by my side when it broke, smiling and holding my hand then. "I told you you'd make it," he said smugly. Beneath the smug, there was the actual feeling that he was happy and relieved I was still alive. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."

I smiled and squeezed his hand back. "Do you really mean that?"

"More than anything," he answered, leaning over and kissing my forehead. His lips were soft, his kiss cool but informing me that I was here, that this was all real and not a dream.

But it also reminded me of the other, older man who had been his rival but also should have been our friend and understanding superior. "Dr. Halsey?" I asked, even though I suspected it.

Herbert's answer was grim. "Dead. This morning. Collapsed in his own office, when the nurses and I found him." He sighed and lowered his eyes. "No surprise, but he could have honored us had he put down those age-old blinders of his. Look where ignorance got him now. A place amongst the dead." I looked up at the ceiling. It was hard to believe that Dean Alan Halsey was dead now, but he was an old man, and his physical strength's limits were bound to run out. Now he was gone, and that meant Herbert lost a rival who tried to block his way.

The funeral took place on the fifteenth, the students of Miskatonic bringing a wreath of serene white flowers, bold red roses, and proud blue hydrangeas; it was a bold tribute distinguished by dedication and honor. But there were more lavish ones sent by wealthy Arkham citizens and lesser ones, even the middle class. Halsey had been a beloved benefactor to them all for as long as they'd been around. I went to the funeral with Herbert, the weight in my heart there but not as much as it had been when I went to the one for my mother less than a few weeks before. I respected Alan Halsey, but I don't think that meant I loved him like a father.

The services ended before one in the afternoon, and Herbert and I joined several of our old classmates and new colleagues at the bar downtown because I wanted to. I just needed to get away from the stench and tension of death in the air, be near some living contact. Herbert didn't seem to mind for once. We both ordered marinated shrimp for two and lemons, not having much of an appetite but enjoying it together. We kept to each other and a short distance from everyone else and talking in whispers.

"Still in shock?" I asked.

He snorted and smirked at the same time. "Very little shocks me, but the loss of our respected adversary, yes. But that might change...tonight," he said softly. "As soon as the sun falls, how about we sneak to the cemetery and bring our old friend back to the house so we can...make a night of it?"

I almost choked on my white wine. "H-Herbert, are you serious? When the caretaker or someone could very much spot us?!" I almost raised my voice before he grasped my hand roughly to keep me quiet.

"Keep your voice down," he hissed. "And yes, I'm serious. We need another test, and think of this as an act of kindness to Halsey. Think of it, Barbara: do you want a great opportunity to go to waste?"

Honestly? No. But still, I had the very bad feeling. Dean Halsey might have been kind and generous but intolerant, and I couldn't help but remember the silly material in certain movies and stories I grew up with as a child in which the person who had been sweet and gentle in life become murderous and aggressive in the next life after death. Too true would they be when Herbert and I would follow through and bring the dean's corpse back to our house later that night.

~o~

This latest "success" was far worse than any of the others. Yes, the man awoke and cried - in both pain and rage - but did not hesitate to attack both Herbert and me, injuring us both in the process before breaking out the window and jumping onto the lawn so it could go off doing what it wanted. Which would go on for two nights in a row before being caught and brought to the local institution for the next many years.

Someone had phoned the police about the disturbance, and they came in through the window to find me and Herbert almost clawed out of our flesh and bleeding to death. We were so weak we were taken to the hospital right away and given blood transfusions, bandaged and confined to bed. We were in the same room together the whole time, watching the news on the TV together and keeping in touch with what was going on. Not long after they left us alone for awhile, Herbert suggested we come up with the story we would give the police.

"We'll just say that he was a rather nice strange man," he instructed, "whom we met at the local bar and decided to bring home with us for more pleasant time. It got too crazy and he went into a drunken rage and attacked us both." He frowned when I didn't speak; I didn't have it in me because I wasn't a very skilled liar _all _the time. "Come on, Barbara, you can do this."

"This is going to be very suspicious to the police," I told him groggily. "They'll ask how come we were so stupid to not ask his name firsthand. Common sense, Herbert," I reminded him.

He let out a frustrated exhale of breath. "You honestly think I don't know that?" he snapped. "Of course I do know. Could you at least do me this favor and go along for both our sakes and for our friend out there, whom we don't want to have hunted down?"

I sighed and nodded in resignation. "Yet another failure of ours," I said, happy and not do happy that I was right once again.

Herbert nodded. "Once again: it wasn't fresh enough."

I had the terrible tremor return to me as, given the re-animated dean's violent altercation upon us, he would not hesitate to stop and think before he did the same to any other poor soul out there, and he sure did. Right after the police interrogated us and accepted the story, it was all over the news later that night. This was what I remembered the most of this summer besides the influenza, the second Arkham horror which most would also recall years from now.

Christchurch Cemetery had a grisly killing, the watchman clawed to death in a manner not only too hideous for description, but it raised questions as to whether or not a human being could actually do such a deed. No wild animals were known around the town, either. The only source of evidence led the police to a false trail which was the body in a gigantic pomegranate-colored pool with a thick trail lessening as the length went on, ending to where the woods lay. It stopped there, because the police searched far and wide with dogs and guns, but no sign of the killer.

This continued into the next night, because the wind howled madly with rain and the unseen sadistic monster roaming free in the town. People were talking in fear that Satan had decided to take the place of his minions and do more work himself, that he would have his fun with innocent souls now and leave the Red Death trails behind his every steps. They called it more accursed than the epidemic, and I couldn't agree more. I wept each hour that passed, in fear mostly. Herbert would shush me gently and say soft nothings from where he was to my left, but it wasn't the same as me being in his arms. His comforts could do nothing to erase my memories of learning of eight homes broken into and seventeen bodies found mutilated and consumed. The thing was hungry half the time, sickening me to the point where I wanted to throw up the food brought to Herbert and me during the day.

By the third night, the fiend was finally caught. The catch was organized by the police and volunteers; it was ensnared by a great net and struggled with inhuman roars and snarls, silenced by a bullet to the side, stunning it but not killing it. It was taken first to the hospital, and I saw it pass by on a stretcher, strapped down. The monster didn't see me or sense me there, but I once again was nauseated by the gore-covered, snarling face of the "late" Dr. Alan Halsey, dean of the Miskatonic Medical School. Herbert saw, too, but said nothing other than what would be the main issue in our work for a long time.

"Damn him for not being fresh enough. None of them ever were. How will we EVER get a fresh human body anytime in the future?"

~o~

_Present Day_

I jolted awake from the dream - actually memory - of Herbert and I in the hospital for recovery from the mauling by the undead dean who had been taken to the Sefton ward, where it knawed and clawed at the bars as well as beat its head against the padded walls of its cell for the last sixteen years...until the incident last year, not long before Herbert West disappeared that same night.

I had decided to fall asleep on the old-floral printed loveseat in this warm, inviting, English-themed sitting room, just because it had been a long, tiring meeting with that Jensen hag. It was a good thing I'd brought some of my things with me, still out in the backseat of the car for the night. I was still in my suit, which needed a change into something lighter and more casual now. It was nearing four already, so not much of anything else to do for the rest of the day. I'd packed a few sets of clothes lightly, as well as my numerous feminine hygiene products, bringing them all into the house and into the sitting room again, picking out the dress of choice. It was matronly and sexy at the same time, with slits in the sleeves to bare some skin, natural-waisted, and going in shades of blue from soft ocean to deep midnight. The colors themselves reminded me of one certain night I remembered all too well after Herbert and I left Arkham for Bolton, the neighbor town, involving six shots by moonlight and monstrosity.

**Doing Lovecraft's original story instead of the movies for once has been quite the journey so far, but more challenges to come. :)**


	6. Onward to Bolton

**Challenges in the hometown left behind and more to face in a new town. But the past is sure to come back to haunt someday. ;)**

Chapter Six

Onward to Bolton

_15 years ago_

A year later, after the two nightmares of Arkham, Herbert and I finally left the town we grew up and moved to Bolton, the smaller neighboring town which was the home of factories. It was bittersweet for me to leave behind the home of memories, mostly because I grew up in Arkham, my mother raised me there, and I got into college where I made it through and won my scholarship...but it was also where it ended in tragedy, death and mayhem. Sometimes when I slept at night, I would remember the face of my mother in her peaceful eternal sleep before the man I was beginning to fall in love with and shared the passion of conquering death with injected her with his solution - and failed. The next was with better but disastrous results, including the deaths of less than twenty people in its wake, and now it was in a padded cell at Sefton.

The home Herbert and I shared now was the beautiful suburban home I dreamed of, but it was farther away from most houses on our street, and it was as close as we could get to the potter's field, also taking care not to say to anyone who asked why we lived there that it was very close to said field.

I remember the day we first moved here, taking in the brick-accented white, two-story house set upon a lush green lawn stretching acres and towards the potter's field and the woods nearby. It was how I envisioned for a family one day, but Herbert liked it mostly because it was close enough to the place which our goal included. I was disappointed that he wasn't interested in making this feel like home for us both. Two years hadn't changed much of anything with him.

"Oh, Herbert, at least tell me you love this as much as I do," I protested when I set down the last box in the doorway, looking around again at the warm wood complemented with soft ivory walls, the great curving staircase and second level broadcasting open air; the staircase railing was accented with iron crafted into vines. In the middle of the floor was a marble interruption, rectangle-shaped and bearing the resemblance of a Moroccan mosaic pattern. How could anyone not have their breath taken away?

Herbert's lips were pursed when he tore his blank eyes from the house to me. "Who said I didn't love it, dear?" he purred, meant to set me on fire when it only rattled my nerves.

"Herbert West," I scolded, "we just left our old life behind, got our MDs and are now starting over, and you're not the least bit excited!" We had decided to set up as general practitioners, and our practice was large enough to please me as any other young doctor, but for Herbert - whose real interest was elsewhere - it was a bore and a burden. "You're so caught up in the work you don't pay attention or interest to anything else around you."

He glared at me and took a step forward. "Don't you dare accuse me of that," he snarled. "And who said I wasn't interested in you, eh?"

Oh, here it goes again. Him turning it onto me. "I'm not talking about us," I returned. "I'm talking about more to do than just dead bodies and quests amid 'black and forbidden realms of the unknown'," I said, quoting Mary Shelley, making him laugh now, his moods changing with the speed of lightning cracking.

"Quoting Mary Shelley on me doesn't always work, Barbara."

"And neither does you pretending to be interested for my own sake," I countered, frustrated with both him and the move. "Besides, I don't remember you ever telling me you love me yet." It had been months since I made the move in kissing him first, but things had gotten nowhere further than that. It hurt my feelings because I wanted so much to hear him say that, and I wanted to feel good telling him I loved him. I would sometimes wake up at night from dreams about Herbert and I. Pretty hot ones. What could you expect at my age? But I had no idea how to ever get Herbert to get into bed with me since we were obviously getting to be more than friends and housemates. Friends and housemates don't simply kiss and fool around; not in THAT sense of fooling around.

He stared at me, jaw slack, but he said nothing. I scoffed and bent down to pick up the box I'd dropped and started for the stairs. This one was full of my books, and I do mean _my _books, not Herbert's.

We decided we ought to share a room now, because I simply wanted to, since I couldn't handle sleeping alone anymore despite how childish it was and inappropriate it was, but it wasn't like anything happened between us in that way. Yet. The bed was made with realistic prints of magnolia flowers, exquisite crystal lamps on either side, and the table in the middle of the floor having a glass surface on a base masterfully constructed also into a magnolia in bloom. I'd wanted something more mature and up-to-date, and the magnolia was one of my favorite flowers. But now, I didn't feel happy. I felt like crying. I'd lost my mother who had been the only living family I had left, Herbert's father was who knew but didn't care. Just because he lacked female figures in his life did not mean he should didn't mean he should stop caring about anything else that made life worth living.

That was it then. He did not know how to cheat death because he didn't understand anything in life that made it worth happiness.

~o~

_Present Day_

I walked through a very beautiful upstairs hallway, giving off the old-fashioned Victorian vibe. Both carved ivory stone and faded wooden panels in both the arched doorways and the bare floors. The hall was long and seemingly endless even though it DID have an end, but it felt as hollow as my heart as it yearned for the man taken away from me. He hadn't always been interested in the little things that made a difference, but that didn't mean he was as human as I was.

~o~

_15 years ago_

I looked up when Herbert came in. I decided then, without thinking about it, that nothing could wait anymore. I wanted to show him how precious life was besides the work. We had plenty of time to cure death, and right now I wanted to teach him a lesson without forcing him to do anything he didn't want to. Unpacking could wait.

"Barbara!" I was on him, grabbing him by the jacket and pulling him towards the bed, spinning him around and onto his back so he lay beneath me. I kissed him hard, sticking my tongue into his mouth to fight with his, so we had to taste each other. He let out muffled protests against my mouth, trying to fight me off until his hands accidentally cupped my breasts beneath my sleeveless lacy top. I didn't know how to describe it other than feeling so damn good I wanted more of it, but Herbert's words tried to ruin it. "Barbara, what has gotten into you?"

My breathing was out of control because I was struggling to get out what I knew I had to say, as well as the fact his hands were still on my breasts that I didn't want them to remove themselves. "I want to...show you how to be alive," I answered, the words so stupid and cheesy to my own ears, but it did the work in bewildering him.

"Alive? Barbara, what are you talking about?" Yep, his hands were leaving, but I brought mine up to cup them into place.

"You don't know how to stop death without experiencing life this way. You never said so yourself, but I know you find relationships not up your alley, but what about me? The woman who has been by your side all this time, helped you this far, and now promises she won't ever leave you?" I meant it here and now, from this day forward. I was straddling him, and since I was wearing knit tan-colored pants, I could feel him getting hard beneath me.

"This is pointless," he ground out, "this talk about being alive when you've never done this yourself." I lost my temper and struck him across the face. His skin turned bright red from the pressure my hand applied as well as rage. Then he reversed our positions and had me pinned down to the bed. I grinned in triumph when he grinded his hips against mine; I somehow found myself liking it rough despite being a virgin and how the first time always hurt. I also moaned when his bucking sent a shiver of pleasure straight to below my stomach. I felt myself getting hotter and hotter with the growing moisture there.

Herbert's face had contorted into that of a wild animal, hungry and angry, and it turned me on more. "You want this now? You're getting it."

"Give it to me rough," I urged, reaching to undo his belt and zipper. A part of my mind was whispering to me that the first time was supposed to be slow and gentle, but I didn't care anymore. I wanted him now, and I knew he wanted me to, but it made me wonder why he gave in so suddenly. Was it because I'd made him so angry he was taking it out on me? Or because he simply liked it rough, too?

I sat up for him to help remove my top to show my white bra which unhooked in the front. At the same time, I lifted my hips to get both my pants and underwear off; he did the same with his, and I reached up to undo his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. We were both naked then, for the first time to each other's eyes. I blushed when I looked him over, seeing how skinny he was but so amazing. Just looking at him was exciting and did the same to right between my legs. "Herbert," I started, unsure of what to say; my speech had been rendered helpless.

His body shifted between my legs, his twitching member pressing against my front eagerly. "Here it comes," he said, easing in with ease, the sensations sweet and jolting before being interrupted by the pain of the tearing of my hymen. I screamed and threw my head back, screaming to the heavens that this hurt so much, but when Herbert began to move slow at first and then faster, it wasn't so bad. I had originally wanted to wait for marriage, but the circumstances had changed. I had finally gotten the cold scientist to break his shell and join with me and our becoming one; I hoped things would change now for the better for more years to come, despite the forebode returning in a matter of time.

**Herbert and Barbara have somewhat of a complicated relationship, and I don't normally do couples like them. Of course EVERY couple has their quarrels and moments, but with these two, it's much more tougher than simply that. **


	7. Six Shots by Moonlight

**This chapter is named after the third part, too. :)**

Chapter Seven

Six Shots by Moonlight

Our relationship actually warmed from the start. Herbert and I started doing it every day, but it wasn't every living minute of the day. There were days we didn't have time for each other, but Herbert was right that work came first; I could live with that. After our rough first time which was actually as enjoyable as I thought it would be, some days he would be soft and gentle when I needed it. He didn't seem to care which way he wanted to go, but as long as it was just me and him.

Restoring re-animation to the dead we retrieved from the graveyard since the hospital was easy for us to get caught was more difficult than ever. We lived as general practitioners by day - to be called Dr. Barbara Kane felt rewarding - the practice very delightful mostly to me because I did not get to be involved with dead bodies most of the time, but it was disappointing to my housemate and lover. I loved Herbert, but I sometimes wished he would at least love what he did with me during the day, think of the people we treated as human beings whose lives were important to us, who looked up to us as their saviors.

At night, when it was our other life, we managed to get our specimens from the field without trouble, but we couldn't take the car because the tire tracks would leave marks in the grass, and if anyone noticed and suspected attempted grave robbing or actual grave robbing, they would point to us since we were the ones who lived as near as possible to the potter's field. As soon as we would get our trophies, we brought them to the basement downstairs which Herbert set up as the laboratory far from nosy eyes. We laid them on the long table beneath the sun lamp and would inject the glowing re-agent into the brain, but because the bodies weren't exceedingly fresh as we wanted them to be and resulting in slight decomposition to the tissue cells, re-animation could never be perfect as we wanted it to be.

Our latest was a slight turn from normal, missing an arm during an amputation. Domestic violence, a battered wife who tried to leave her husband and got her arm chopped off as punishment, left to bleed to death. Her husband had been arrested for her murder. We brought her across the field and through the back door which lead downstairs to the basement lab. However, as soon as we laid the dead woman down, Herbert's strained voice broke the silence.

"I couldn't help but...feel like we were..." He trailed off, unable to finish.

I sighed. I began thinking since so often lately that he was now beginning to lose it. "Herbert, I didn't feel anything. No one was watching us. Even if they were, they would have called the police by now."

He glanced up at me. "Not that. You know what I mean." He was talking about the creature which had been our very first, whose existence we never learned about, and no reports of anymore killings of the sort like it had been with the re-animated dean, now locked away at Sefton.

"Herbert..." I walked around the table and behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist and drawing him closer so I could kiss and nibble his ear, making him moan softly; I knew his eyes were closed without looking. "...that thing wasn't nearly as smart as Halsey was."

"Don't say his name," he warned, hating being reminded of the past. I continued, undaunted.

"And it didn't see or follow us back to the house, remember? It couldn't even get out through the window. So stop being so paranoid and let's continue." I kissed him on the cheek then. He turned his head around to look me down and smile then in agreement. But deep down, the relief would be short-lived as it always was.

Sadly, the poor woman was no different than my mother had been after the plague; her eyes had opened, sans physical quivers of fright, but then they closed again and didn't reopen. No bodily movement of any sort to follow. Herbert and I decided then that because she missed an arm we should stick to bodies with whole physical perfection. We had more luck with bodies here in Bolton than in Arkham, but the numbers were still small compared to our hometown, between September and the January to follow, marking the beginning of 2001 - the year the World Trade Center of New York would be bombed in the September to come.

The third had the needle muscular motions and shivers, but our hopes had been on the rise too high when it collapsed back into eternal rest. More to follow had been too diseased and therefore certain organs were poor, sometimes the blood itself. Herbert and I had been keeping track of every one that came and went, keeping to ourselves and making sure we weren't suspicious to another's eyes. Nothing happened to us really, but my anxieties couldn't be quenched long enough as Herbert's fear that he was being stalked couldn't. That made two of us.

And then, somewhere in early March, our luck changed when we were contacted regarding a death that did not end up going to the potter's field directly.

~o~

The season of winter was barely over by the time Herbert and I got a new body which wasn't from the location near our house. To this day, fights among workers in the factories were still common; in the old days of Puritanism, it would have been called illegal and punishable if anyone was caught.

Herbert and I were approached by one of the regular patients who was a worker at the factory and had been present at the incident but had no part in it. We were just closing up for the night when he came to us in desperation, fearfully. "They want you two to handle in in secret. The person who did it - by accident, he swears," he panted desperately, which I gave him a Valium to calm him down for the sake of it, "doesn't want to be arrested. He really didn't mean to kill the man; the dead man got it coming to him even when it wasn't meant to be."

The one who had been responsible was Kid O'Brien, twenty-five years old and inexperienced, challenged by none other than Buck Robinson, who was a champion at boxing and had apparently challenged the younger man to see if he was big enough. To see if he was really all that tough. I hated a larger person picking on the weaker one since my younger days and I sure did now. I thought it impressive that the smaller guy had found it in him to lose it and fight back, because Robinson - called "The Harlem Smoke" by his friends and those who knew him - had been a big-time bully of the factory but nobody did anything about it when he taunted the others around him. He'd been knocked out by O'Brien, and further inspections by myself showed he would remain that way forever.

I could feel my heart beating terribly at the thought of word getting out despite Herbert and I handling it ourselves, because once it was out, we were finished. I barely heard Herbert assuring the crowd that we would take care of this ourselves and that they would all be fine - even O'Brien - but that they would all be in trouble if they did not keep quiet about this affair. "Not just us, but all of you, as well," he warned. Everyone nodded feebly but said nothing. We wrapped the bulky black man in a sheet given to us and were aided in taking it to the back seat of the car, making everyone shudder involuntarily. They had no idea _I_ was feeling the same, not that they should.

It was getting late when we took the thing home and into our lab. Moonlight streamed over the landscape, no snow covering the ground since last month, and there were no windows in the basement to shine through on our specimen which Herbert injected into the back of the neck. This one was much more difficult to bring down the stairs compared to the other that frightening night back in Arkham, but we made it eventually.

"We must hurry," Herbert said as he shrugged off his coat at the same time I did. My clothing was the same as his, without the tie, of course. I watched as he withdrew the needle from the back of the brown neck and lowered the head back onto the table. "We can't have the police checking in on us now, can we?" His smile was sardonic, hiding his great fear as immense as mine was. If the police spotted us at any time during the night, they would put us away for life, and that meant we would never accomplish the great goal which doctors tried to do long before our time.

Unfortunately, the black man gave no response. None of the usual to expect. Herbert swore and slammed his palm flat on the counter. "Damn! A long trip back gone to waste." He shook his head. "The brain is too damaged for any response. Might as well get rid of it." By this time, the hour neared one in the morning; we were both going to have a bad day.

"Well, we can't just leave it here in our basement, can we?" My stupid question did not make him any better.

"Of course not; why would we? We'll just dump it off in the woods, bury it and cover with leaves and vines the best we can. You know what they say about dead bodies and decomposition? They make excellent fertilizer." I shuddered at his artistic description of using natural elements and the ghastly thing on our table in one sentence.

~o~

The ground was still solid when we buried our failed specimen, covering it the best we could and keeping our hands covered with gloves to prevent our DNA and fingerprints from being left on. We'd had them on since called to the case. The police might not ever trace it back to us, that is IF they ever found the body. Bolton had a really good police force for such a small town, but then again, in small towns, people catch on quick. I couldn't help but wonder if Buck Robinson had any family to inquire his disappearance; I didn't see a ring, which told me he wasn't married or had children, but that didn't really mean anything.

Nobody reported him missing for several days, which told me he wasn't exactly a well-liked or popular fellow despite his infamy at the factory, but that didn't erase the paranoia Herbert and I shared of the discovery by the police force. Gladly, the word was ordered to keep quiet; we agreed that the workers didn't fear for us but for themselves. "Cowards," Herbert had called them, and I wholeheartedly agreed with him.

But by the sixth or so day, Herbert's last case of the day ended with a threat of peril to us both. Ravenna de Luca, an Italian woman who had relocated with her husband Giovanni to the New England colonies with their six-year-old son Giorgio, suffered a bout of hysteria when her child didn't come back home for dinner from friends. A search was on, but she wouldn't calm down and it didn't do anything for her fragile heart condition which she'd been born with. "Please, my baby is out there!" she wailed to Herbert, whom she clung onto pleadingly. "What if he was kidnapped, Doctor?"

I gently pried her from my lover and allowed myself to be held by her. "It's going to be fine," I tried to assure her, to no avail. She was still crying and speaking of bad omens instead of fact. I wondered if she was psychic or something, because her name of Ravenna meant the raven itself, which was a symbol of bad luck and death. I tried to offer her something to calm her down, or at least check on her heart to keep her alive so her child would see her again if he was brought back, but she refused Valium which could calm her down temporarily. Her panic attacks worsened with each shriek.

"NO, I WILL NOT CALM DOWN! MY GIORGIO IS GONE, AND I SENSE IT, NO MATTER HOW MUCH I WANT TO BELIEVE HE'LL BE FOUND AGAIN! SOMETHING, NOT _SOMEONE, _HAS TAKEN MY CHILD FROM ME!" She stopped right there, gripping her fingers on the sleeves of my lab coat, eyes going wide and mouth parted to release choking noises. Her heart was giving out; I screamed for the nurses to take her in and set up the IV. We were going to save her now, no matter what. Herbert followed us into the emergency room, shouting that we had a heart attack case.

Unfortunately, we were too late by the time we charged the paddles and administered the amiodarone, applies oxygen and CPR. She was gone. Ravenna de Luca died at exactly seven o'clock in the evening. Her husband Giovanni exploded by the time Herbert broke the news to him and their friends.

"_Hijo de perra_!" he roared in his language, which translated to mean "son of a bitch". "Bastard! You were supposed to save my wife's life! You let her die! I should kill you! You AND Dr. Kane together!" He reached into his jacket then and pulled out a pocket knife from his jacket. He really meant that he was going to kill Herbert, or maybe he was just so grief-stricken he didn't know what he was doing. I had to get us out of here fast, so I grabbed Herbert by the arm and led him away from the insane Italian man who was still roaring threats to him in his native tongue. He didn't seem to care any longer for his still-missing son, which made me angry. I wanted children someday, so this was wrong on so many levels.

"He won't kill you," I promised him, though I doubted my own words. I'd never encountered a man like that, so I really didn't know if he would really follow through. I had to prepare with Herbert just in case, but he didn't seem to be thinking straight as we got into the car.

"They'll be searching the woods for the boy by now," he spoke in a dull monotone. "Which means the police might find the body there if they haven't, but de Luca will come to us when their heads are turned."

"_After _us," I corrected gently. "If he does, we'll call it justified since he tried to attack you. His friends and the whole emergency room saw what happened; they'll call him insane."

My own words, once more, did little to comfort. I had more tense feelings, having a feeling that there were more problems to face besides the police and the crazy, grieving widower himself.

~o~

We went to bed at ten, but I didn't sleep much, waking a couple times and finding myself facing the window which streamed moonlight on me and Herbert's sleeping form beside me. I wondered how he could sleep solid despite the evening's events. Maybe because I was a woman, I worried more than him, but he seemed more so than I because of the past.

My turning woke him at a couple points. "Barbara, please, calm down."

I turned onto my back and my head in his direction; his back was facing me. "If they ever reach us, we'll be in prison for a long time and lose our practice. You know what that means for our real work."

He sighed and turned around to face me fully. He blinked owlishly without his glasses. "I know that good and well. I'm just as afraid as you are, as much as I hate to admit it. But please, try to sleep for now." I rolled onto my back and let myself be taken into his arms; his lithe, lightly muscled body spooned against me and warmed me, almost doing the trick in making me fall back to sleep at three in the morning -

\- until we were both startled out of our skins and the bed by the loud, dangerous pounding that we could hear all the way downstairs. At the _back door. _I jumped out first to pull on my red tropical themed satin robe over my red satin slip, Herbert grabbing his striped robe as well as his revolver. I did the honors of grabbing the flashlight and following him to the door. "Who do you think it is at this time?" I asked nervously as we tiptoed down the opened hallway. He shook his head.

"Might as well be a patient at this ungodly hour, but maybe de Luca has waited this late to strike." He looked down at his weapon with a slight smile. "He's a fool to come armed with a knife to a gunfight then." I had to agree with him, because how could the police come with a warrant for our arrest at these small hours of the night? The door was still rattling with each pound and the doorknob threatening to break off; we were still tiptoeing down the stairs for it, and when we finally reached it, I moved fast and got on the other side of the knob, unlocking it shakily before throwing it open fast and moving to stand beside my lover, shining the flashlight into the face of our late night visitor.

This visitor was neither manic Italian man nor investigating authorities.

The figure was a gigantic bulk we remembered several days before, one we both thought was dead and buried in the woods as we left it; it was still covered with leaves, vines, dirt and moss. It was a thing of nightmares, unseen by any living man or woman every day, the eyes glowing a surreal blend of raging red and sickly green, snarling and growling like the beast it was as it took us both in with those eyes; what nauseated me to my stomach the most was the sight of the long, slender white thing which had a hand much smaller than mine was. A child's arm. Poor Ravenna de Luca had been right, that her son had been killed by _something _the police would never get to in time. And it was none other than the black boxer Buck Robinson whom we tried to revive after the backstreet fight.

The dead barbarian took a step forward, uttering gutteral noises and small words, as it still had Giorgio de Luca's little arm still between its pink-stained teeth, attempting to speak but could only utter a single word that surprised Herbert and me: _"Huuuuunnngggggrrryyyyyyy..."_

Six bullet shots rang through the night air, echoing to the trees and the acres of graves before our home, and the undead boxer with the child's limb fell before us.


	8. Honeymoon Hell

**Here comes the pivotal point where the relationship gets to the rocky part of the paradise they've created. Well, a blend of paradise and purgatory. And losses that hurt more than the plague and the failed re-animations.**

Chapter Eight

Honeymoon Hell

_Present Day_

This bathroom reminded me of paradise. The paradise Herbert and I went to in the summer of 2007 when we got married. The walls were soft seafoam blue, reminding me of being underwater, splashed with white and marble in the countertop of the sink and around the bathtub. Sometimes Herbert had it in him to come and join me after a long stressful day, even when we were tired but still wanted each other. On our honeymoon, we'd gone to Cape Cod, which was out towards the Atlantic Ocean and isolated from Bolton and Arkham altogether, where it was supposed to be just us celebrating the official start of the rest of our lives together. Just wedded bliss.

I slipped out of my expensive suit and got into the hot bath; being in a hotter than intended bath was also my way of burning the pain my body didn't deserve. After so many years, Herbert had finally given in to me begging about having a baby, but he didn't complain much as I thought he would have since he thought the work so important above everything else. I had found out I was pregnant in April of that year, frightened to death when I tried to think of how to tell him and show him the test as proof. He did agree to this, but I doubted he was fully prepared for being a father. His own was a bad example. I had been raised by a single mother, but my father was gone long before I was in middle school years. But I had a good feeling about that, though I wondered then how we would raise a child in the middle of everything we did. I didn't learn that the answer was never until it was too late.

~o~

_8 years ago_

I was twenty-nine years old when I found out I was pregnant. I was overjoyed, but it didn't last because my mother wasn't there to welcome a grandchild. For a month I suffered nausea and my bleeding missed, but it was clear to me Herbert and I were going to have a baby after all these years. We'd been together for seven, but you'd think marriage first and baby second.

Herbert hadn't reacted much other than a smile and him taking me into his arms; words weren't always his way of expressing how he felt. He whispered in my ear that he was happy. "I love you, Barbara," he whispered in my hair. "I know I don't say it often, but you know I do."

I nodded and leaned into him, smelling his musk. Things between us had been pretty stiff regarding the use of bodies, our times together lessening, but then the last one - a victim of a burning house - which almost tried to kill me made him realize he didn't want to lose me ever. So it took him that long to _finally _realize that after nine years total? "Why did it take you that long to finally tell me you can't stand losing me?" I asked when we drew away. "And now telling me you're sure you want this?" I took his hand and put it against my stomach so he could at least feel our child there. I knew that having a baby meant making big changes in life. But Herbert wasn't really bent on change, or was he?

He smiled down at me. "Of course I do. I promised I wouldn't survive without you, and I am keeping it. Which is why I've wanted to ask you this for awhile." He reached into his pocket then and withdrew the most beautiful golden ring I'd ever seen; the design was flawless and set with three diamonds, like it came from another century. "Barbara Kane, I love you so much, you're my partner and equal in all things besides our work, and I want to marry you as long as you'll have me."

I could not refuse, so I wept in his arms and buried my face into his neck, crying until he took me to bed with him so we could make up for lost times.

In June, we were married on the beach of Cape Cod, which was also where we spent out honeymoon. Mom wasn't there to help me pick my dress out, and the affair wasn't overtly done. It was just me and him taking our vows, the flowers present being those on the balconies of the hotel rooms of our resort of stay. My dress was irresistible, gleaming white satin with an overlay of floral-embroidered silk chiffon with short sleeves, my hair half up and accented with a crystalline headband. I wore my favorite cross as the one piece of my mother's spiritual presence, so I would know she was with me on this day that she couldn't be, as well as the beautiful, double-looped diamond ring he gave me as a wedding present, which was the perfect symbol of the classic love story.

"God, you look beautiful," commented Dr. Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee, a very good friend and colleague of ours who had been a classmate of mine back in high school, though I admit I believe he had a crush on me then as I did him, before we went our separate ways. He was internationally celebrated, traveling over the world and had a ninety percent success rate. Returning to Massachusetts, we reconnected but we were never more than just friends. Herbert accepted him as a colleague, allowing him to discuss the theory of re-animation but never allowing him to work with us on what we kept hidden from the world. Even though I felt I could trust Eric, I had to admit that my husband-to-be was right.

Eric did the honors of marrying us, the only one allowed to witness our intimate affair. Our vows were taken under the cloudy sky parting to let the sun shine down on us, and we were married with a single kiss.

No priest to bless us, no religious services...just Herbert and me, and our dear friend Clapham-Lee. I thought it all the more perfect than any other wedding I dreamed of as a little girl.

Nothing but spas and pools, the beach, and some fun which wasn't the dead to deal with. Herbert West had very little fun in his life and therefore was still struggling to adjust to it. At night, we made love with the windows open to let some summer breeze in to guide us in our coupling. I felt happier than I remember, but then the night before we were supposed to return to Bolton, I was awakened by strange sensations in my stomach. I felt something sticky beneath the covers and threw them back to show that my naked body - I slept without nightclothes on because of the summer humidity - was covered in blood. I screamed, waking Herbert.

"Barbara, God!" He jumped out of bed and hurriedly helped me into a slip-over dress and out the door for the infirmary right away, where Eric was volunteering for the time being. But I had the terrible feeling it was too late, which I would later find out that it was. I'd lost our baby.

Words can't describe the mental, physical, and emotional agony I suffered in the infirmary room, being in that bed while they ran some tests for me, Herbert by my side the whole time and holding my hand, though he seemed distant. Our baby was gone, but it wasn't either fault of ours. "This happens sometimes, as you both know," Eric tried to assure us, "so, I'm sure next time might be the charm. But I still offer my condolences for your loss." He knelt down before us both and took my hand in his, then hesitantly patted Herbert on the shoulder. My husband stiffened a little under his touch.

I turned my head to the side, unsure of what to say. I could not speak, would not speak, because the loss of the life in my womb was too much to bear. I was only two months pregnant, and this was my first child. I wondered how my husband was taking this. He was aggrieved, too, but he wasn't the one who was having the baby. You could never fully understand death until you've given life.

~o~

_Present Day_

I cried harder than I ever did in my life, cried more than when Mom died, more than when Dad died before her. I cried for the loss of the babe, and the same amount for the next one we lost, which was a year after we were married. It was another miscarriage, caused by another subject which reacted violently this time, if a bit lesser than the cannibal monster at Sefton, but it took our next and last hope from us. As it turned out, being the wife of Dr. Herbert West was never going to make anything any better.

I finished my bath and rose to slip into the dress I picked out. The sooner I exited did I hear my mobile ringing. I answered it. "Dr. West."

_"Is this a bad time?"_

I laughed at the familiar voice of Dawn Ryder, my intern at Miskatonic. She was the daughter I always wanted but never had from my barren body. "Not at all. How is my angel?" Favoritism wasn't tolerated, but Dawn, who lost both her parents at an early age, was everything to me as both little ones I lost too early in the first trimester.

_"I wanted to see how you were handling being back over there. I know people talked about how...weird your husband was, but I would have done the same back where my parents used to live. I know it's not the same, but..." _She trailed off, but I understood what she was trying to say. And yes, she was right about our situations not being the same. She was the only one who knew the truth about my marriage to Herbert West. Eight years of being in matrimony to a man who changed thanks to the miscarriages and his downward spiral as time went on, shattering everything we had.

**Marriage has plenty of ups and downs, but this one is more advanced and out of the ordinary. It's really unclear at the present if the Wests' marriage is too damaged to be saved. Time will tell. **


	9. The Scream of the Dead

**If anyone remembers part four, "The Scream of the Dead", you're in for Barbara cracking at the most terrible deed she's witnessed her husband commit.**

Chapter Nine

The Scream of the Dead

_5 years ago_

To hear a dead man or woman scream is natural to be afraid of, but since three years before and suffering two losses in my body, it wasn't the dead that scared me now.

Herbert and I had been married for three years now, but we were drifting further apart. We still worked together, but we barely touched or looked each other in the eyes, barely exchanged words not related to work. It was like we were complete strangers, or maybe it was a sign that living with him was a bad idea that I should have realized a long time ago. I tried living a normal life with him other than re-animation of the dead, but the miscarriages were proof that it was impossible. Just being bound to him had costed me everything I loved: my mother and what should have been the children Herbert and I were supposed to have.

After the second miscarriage, it was discovered by Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee that I wouldn't be able to have another child because of so much damage to my inner abdomen. To learn the news from my high school crush was great to my heart and my empty womb, and Herbert had been there for me the whole time, but he wouldn't understand because of obvious reasons. He wasn't grieving the same way I was that we couldn't have children. I'd thought about adopting - a suggestion from Eric to us both - but it wasn't the same as having your own. And I think Herbert decided no children was necessary after all; he never said it aloud, but I knew it. My heart broke at this when the man I loved and married, followed his every footstep, was changing so much on me.

In terms of our work, Herbert's difficulty level of obtaining the freshest human bodies was on the highest level than ever. They were hard to get, and he discovered some time ago that he wanted a body in which life had just left it, but I wondered how on earth we could ever manage that. We had never been beyond hearing the first word of a body being buried, and by then the freshness level was below zero.

But then it all changed by July of 2010, which was the turning point of my fear for my own husband.

I was away on a conference in Boston for the last two weeks, finding the peace very comforting, but I was returning to everything hellish. I began to see it hellish with what began in the basement I came home to. Dressed casually - I had a day off of rest before returning to the hospital - in a sweater and glittering butterfly-printed jeans, I came home to my husband at the front door, face alight with elation, and I knew it wasn't just the sight of me. "What have you done while I was away?" I asked suspiciously.

"Remember the embalming compound I was telling you about?"

"Of course." He'd told me in a phone call that he'd been working on a new compound which could help with the problem of freshness, which baffled me because the tissues deteriorated before we could obtain the specimen. Zinc chloride-based compounds existed for embalming of dead flesh, first developed in 1848.

"I have created it in the event of your absence, my dear," he said as he led me to the basement; I dropped my bags off at the bottom of the stairs on the way. "At first I planned to save it after you returned, but luck blessed me again. I have our man waiting for you." His blue eyes gleamed enthusiastically. "You'll be very happy."

If only that were true. I hadn't been that much happy for years. He had gotten a new body without going to the potter's field like we did the boxer Robinson years ago; at least it saved us the trouble of digging up the prize from the ground. The man was of middle years, pale and bearing a sandy stubble, unmoving and almost wax-looking because of preservation. I thought it remarkable, however Herbert did this. For some years now, my husband and I had been wanting to do what we never did before: revive at least a spark of reason in the subject. "How did you get him?" I asked, standing at the foot of the table.

He shrugged casually. "He had stopped by the house the day before, asked me for directions to the old mills still running. So I told him, but before he could leave, his heart began to give out so I brought him in for a stimulant for it, but he was dead on the floor before I could give it." His mouth twitched, which I found really suspicious. "I saved him just for you. How about that? He might be the answer; he might just very well come back with full reason unlike the others before him!"

For a moment, I thought he might be right now. The man hadn't been dead that long, and he didn't seem to have any family to ask about his whereabouts. "His name, where he's from?" I pried.

"Robert Leavitt, from St. Louis, Missouri. And no, he's not married, from what I looked into him. And if we bring him back, we'll finally be famous," Herbert said, coming up to me and grasping my forearms in his hands, almost bruising me. He wasn't intending to harm me, but to try and get me to agree. I nodded hastily, inwardly nervous of the unknown as always. Ideas and visions of me and my husband gathering our newfound fame of ultimately cheating death...

"Barbara! Pay attention," Herbert snapped, getting my attention. "Here it comes now."

The compound had worked, preventing the body from stiffening. I watched as Herbert took small, delicate steps in this new version of our experiment. It seemed that he didn't trust me with his newfound discovery, so I was infuriated that he didn't trust me, his own wife and science partner. After that, it seemed he wouldn't trust me anymore than I trusted him. I watched in silence as he picked up the head and injected a needle filled with a clear substance I couldn't recognize from where I was. "To neutralize the compound, relax the body so I can administer the re-agent," Herbert explained to me, and after performance, he let the head rest against the table.

I had been expecting the body to be wholly unmoving, but the limbs were trembling. I held my breath, my heart rapidly picking up when the truth began to come to light, but I couldn't acknowledge it at the moment because Herbert then stuffed a cloth over the face, not removing it until the corpse was dead as it should be, before turning behind him to pick up the syringe of re-agent. He had actually checked the heart with a stethoscope and the eye pupils before pronouncing it necessary to give the final result. "He's dead now." The air was stiff with waiting; I wondered if the man had seen God and heaven before returning to Earth alive and well, though Herbert wouldn't, because he was the same as ever in not believing in the afterlife. But I also worried that perhaps reason couldn't be restored, that this one wouldn't speak normal words, maybe scream in wordless agony like the first.

I had been watching the face the whole time, catching the faintest rise of color to the pale cheeks. It was working! I hurried over and checked the pulse, nodding to my husband who joined on the other side, pressing the stethoscope once more to the chest and detecting an obvious heartbeat. Following were a few twitching of muscles in the arms, and then finally the eyes opened, showing blue-gray eyes which were vibrant with life, but nowhere near intelligent as we expected. "Herbert...?" I asked softly.

He held up a finger to silence me. "Sssh."

I ignored him and leaned over when I saw the lips moving, but I wasn't a lip-reader, so therefore I couldn't understand what he was trying to say. "Where were you?" I asked gently, hoping some baby talk would start it; Herbert rolled his eyes but said nothing.

And then I was stunned by WORDS from the man: "Only now..."

I frowned. What did that mean? Did he actually go to heaven, or was he simply here all this time but in darkness, renouncing the beliefs in God and all he stood for? Either way, the man had truly spoken, and we'd restored reason and life to him!

But I should have anticipated that the triumph would not last long.

I watched with the man I married three years ago that our specimen's eyes widened, the pupils dilated, as he shakily rose up as he remembered what happened to him long before now, then threw his arms out as though trying to fight something - or _someone_ \- off, screaming the words which I would never forget:

"Help! Keep off, you cursed little tow-headed fiend! _Keep that damned needle away from me!_"

He collapsed back onto the table, laying inert once more and would remain so. Staring at the corpse in horror, I finally found it in me to tear my wet eyes from it to the man I had been chained to for the last twelve years. I found the courage even though I wasn't really feeling it to speak the truth.

"You killed him, Herbert."

He looked calmly from the body to me. His face overall was blank, devoid of any emotion. "We needed a fresh specimen. You know how hard they are to come by, Barbara. The moment he entered our house as I told you, his heart began to fail, but I didn't really offer a stimulant. I had a sedative by which he freaked out even though I didn't tell him what it was really. He apparently had a fear of needles, given he had a small history of ever going to doctors all his life." A smile finally graced the mouth which I used to love to kiss but now couldn't stand right now. "He was perfect."

"You're a monster," I spat out, making him laugh.

"Would a monster really fit my description? I didn't kill him for the sake of his own life. He had no family, no one who cares about him, and did I not make it clear that the body has to be very fresh and genuinely dead?" His eyes were cold and hard as steel now, darkened with a madness that began to scare me into wanting to leave his presence. "A cause is at hand, Barbara. Whether you like this or not."

I backed away finally, shaking my head. "What's happened to you? What happened to the man I love? The man who wanted to cure death only to take a life? Herbert, you're a doctor like I am! I never thought I'd see you resort to murder."

He growled and took a couple steps forward, towering over me. "You dare question my sanity, wife?" he snarled.

"I'm questioning both that AND your morals," I challenged. "You're not the man I fell in love with, wanted to put an end to the disease called death. You took a life now just as you took life from me."

Herbert stared at me for a moment before bursting out into cold, heartless laughter. "_I _took life from you? What exactly are you talking about? You willingly chose to be my assistant and my wife."

"I'm talking about both the miscarriages!" I burst out. "The first time wasn't your fault, I know that, but the second was the result of that monster of yours! You said you were sorry, but are you sorry about the fact that you promised we'd have children only to find out that it's impossible? Now do you see what I mean? You took life from me!" I glared up at him, clenching my fists and drawing blood with my nails. I felt it drip from my palm and barely heard it hit the floor. "Now you took it beyond that." I nodded to the dead businessman on our table. "Get rid of him yourself. I'm not staying here tonight. I'll check into a motel for the night."

I was up the stairs when he mocked me. "Oh, you think running away solves your problems?"

I paused and turned back to glare at him. "It won't," I answered, "but it gives me great peace to be away from you."

~o~

_Present Day_

_"Would you like me to come over there?" _Dawn asked me, snapping me out of my reverie. I quickly answered her.

"Oh, well, I was planning to have today alone," I answered, "but I suppose I could use the pleasure of your company."

_"I'll be there in twenty minutes."_

I hung up and looked around the house. There was nothing much to do, because a housekeeper had taken care of everything for me before I arrived. Mrs. Jensen might be old and critical, but at least she took matters into her own hands to have the house ready for my return to the past. I decided to cook dinner for Dawn and I when she returned, settling on prepping steak soaked with a special homemade butter of my own making. Exactly twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang, startling me out of my skin. I don't know why I was so scared, but perhaps it was because of being back in this place again that the littlest of things scared me when they shouldn't.

Dawn was twenty-one years old, with long platinum blonde hair in cascading ringlets, her eyes blue and piercing as the sky, and had plump rosy lips. She reminded me of Sleeping Beauty...but also a little bit of my husband, though not possessing his cold demeanor and arrogance. She was lively in a kaleidoscope-printed dress and jewelry clustered with blues and greens. "Glad I'm here?" she asked coyly, stepping in and taking in the elegant surroundings. "Very nice, but I still don't understand why you insisted on moving back here, after..."

"Closure, as I told you," I interrupted her gently, leading her into the kitchen. "I don't sleep at night anymore, remembering it all like it was yesterday. I have to put it all behind me." However, the longer I was here and the more I remembered all those years which led me here, sitting down now with my intern-daughter to have dinner with her, I knew it wouldn't be an easy process.

Dawn praised the great food before hooking me with her blue orbs. "But being married to a man who started trying to stop death only to move onto body parts in the war isn't going to be easy to get over," she said, reading my mind. "Seventeen years of it all, as you said. That's not simple to let go of." Her hand came to hold mine. "Just like it's never easy to forget your first...crush. Those feelings never die, either."

I nodded numbly. "I know. Believe me, I know." For her to bring up my past with Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee made me feel a tinge of regret both good and bad. I looked down at the steak on my plate I'd cut open and saw a little trace of blood. Medium rare, as we both liked it. But the blood brought me back to the battlefields of Flanders three years before.

**Ouch, yep, things are worse than ever. :( If anyone knows the obvious, it should be clear WHERE Barbara is really going. For those who don't, find out in the next chapter! R and R, as usual!**

**For anyone who likes Dawn Ryder, she's going to play an important part much later. **

**For anyone who wants to learn more about zinc-based chloride compounds, the information is true about their first year of development, and feel free to look up more. :)**


	10. Horrors from the Shadows

**As a start, let's say Barbara does something nobody ever would have expected me - as well as myself - to do with the female lead against the man she loves...or used to love.**

Chapter Ten

Horrors From the Shadows

_5 years ago_

The truth was, I wasn't checking into a motel, as much as I wanted to. I went straight to the house of the one man I knew was the last real friend I had in a long time. Though Eric and I didn't get anywhere beyond friendship unlike Herbert and I, at least he was someone I could talk to about anything. He was a great science partner and a fun-loving guy back in those days; now he was more refined but still had his sense of humor.

"Barbara!" He was surprised to see me at an unexpected time. Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee was the opposite of Herbert with his dark hair and spectacleless brown eyes, charming and warm unlike Herbert. He was everything my husband was not. I sometimes wondered if I should have married Eric instead of Herbert, if my life would have been different. "What are you doing here?" I was about to answer when he stepped forward and his fingers brushed against my cheek; I think I shivered involuntarily when I felt warmer than I had ever been before, like I was back when we were teenagers. The warning bells were on again, but I was here, and I didn't want to go back to that prison tonight.

"Why were you crying?" he asked, eyes narrowing. "What did he do to you?"

I pulled back, feeling like I was stung by his touch. "He did nothing physically. We just had a fight. But I don't think I can take it anymore." I had to be very careful not to reveal anything and get us both in danger.

Eric stared at me for a moment before nodding and leading me inside. I saw a mostly white, modernized structure with colorful spun glass figures on the dark wooden shelves and tables, all in style in contrast to the old fashion I lived in. It felt surreal but a good change from my comfort zone. "Can I offer my oldest friend something?" Eric asked as he closed the door behind us. I nodded.

"Still have the booze we used to sneak from your parents' for some of those nights?" Back in high school, near the end of senior year, we used to celebrate by sneaking to his parents' to celebrate the end of midterms and finals before he went off to Harvard and I to Miskatonic. He grinned and laughed, nodding before leading me to the black leather sofa and bringing over the decanter and brandy glasses. I just needed something smooth and burning, something mellowed.

"Just like the good old days, eh?" I laughed with him, though I really didn't feel like it after today. "So, what happened? You got home from a long conference to what?" Eric asked as he sat down with me.

I tried not to drink too much in case the truth slipped out. "Herbert and I just...aren't on fire anymore. We still work together, but it's not the same like it used to be. We've known each other since college, but it's gotten worse over the years, and three years of marriage hasn't changed anything." I looked up to see his brows furrowed as he took in what I said.

"Is this because of the...miscarriages?" he asked hesitantly.

I shook my head and nodded at the same time. "It's not just them, but the fact he's so caught up in the work. One time caused me to lose the other baby the second time, remember that?" I'd told him then that the cause of losing the second child was a crazy person attacking us in the street one day. He nodded and said simply "Mm-hmm" before allowing me to continue. "I wanted a normal life, but with him, it's just so..." I swallowed. "...I love him, but I don't know if I will ever change him back to the one I fell in love with." Silently, unspoken, I knew there was no going back. Herbert was too insane to consider redemption no matter how hard I tried to make it work between us.

"I know being married and having children can change a man, but I doubt it will a man like Herbert West." He shook his head. "You married a brilliant man, a great doctor, but everything's just changed so much. I was married before you and I met up again, but we divorced after six years. Just didn't work out; she couldn't stand us not able to spend time together." I was shocked to learn he had finally told me of a wife before me. Seemed we both were having marriage that weren't working out; well, I was still in mine and he was out of his.

"That makes us both," I said tiredly. I clinked my glass with his. "To horrible lives," I said jokingly before taking a giant swig that burned my throat and made me feel a little lightheaded.

I spent the rest of the evening in his arms, just him holding onto me as we watched television together and I felt like I wanted to go to sleep, but at the same time, his body temperature matching mine, I wanted more than just sleep. More than just infatuation was on the rise, and it was desire. Something I haven't felt in a long time. I looked up into Eric's eyes and saw them darkening when they met mine. His face was nearing mine, and I think I was doing the same, but I couldn't tell because my brain was in a haze. My body's reactions were bubbling like the ones in the basement of me and Herbert's home.

My lips were covered with his; how long did I want to kiss him when we were teenagers? He was certainly consoling and exactly who I needed now when I was nothing but a ghost of who I was then. Happiness was no good for me since becoming the wife of a mad doctor...and then it dawned on me I was making a mistake in making out with our friend and colleague, who was also a long-ago infatuation. But the heavier, lightheaded side of me told me that I needed just one night of relief and solace from the hell I had been living. "Eric," I said softly, "take me upstairs?"

I let myself being carried upstairs to his room. He laid me across a nature-themed jacquard printed bed and helped me out of my sweater. I reached up and unbuttoned his light blue shirt, exposing a lightly sculpted chest far more healthier than my husband's. Every young girl's dream. I flushed, running my hands up his chest and then grasping his shoulders. He leaned down and kissed me again, this time getting hotter when his tongue was joining with mine. I reached down and undid the button and zipper of my jeans, lifting my hips so he could slip them and my underwear off. Cool air ignited the nerves down there, making me hotter and wetter for him. "Please," I begged softly, helping him free his erection from the tight prison of his jeans.

However, the whole time we were having what I decided to call comfort sex - anyone else, actually - and it was pure bliss that brought me to life once again, sending a wave of lightness that had been taken away from me through my body, I found myself looking past Eric's broad shoulder and to a dark corner; the whole room was dark save for one of the bedside lamps lit and the shade a dark red and not offering much brightness. The corner hid everything from the eye's sight, but glancing at it gave me the unnatural feel of horror I felt had followed me to this sanctuary I had escaped to for one night. It was like Herbert, despite being the atheist he was, had followed me spiritually and haunted me as I gave my body to our friend and fellow doctor. He would not let me be happy tonight, not ever again. He wanted me committed to the work and the work only, force me to share his madness.

I could almost see his bright blue eyes piercing through the darkness and glaring at me, telling me I was betraying him and everything we did together. He was marking me with infidelity, with deceit and uncleanliness, but it wasn't like I wasn't filthy already.

~o~

_2 years later_

Eric had been transferred out of Massachusetts to Canada in 2012, and when he was, he enlisted the help of both me and my husband, the celebrated surgeons Dr. Herbert and Barbara West. Little did anyone know how estranged we were despite remaining married for the sake of a research between me and him, and us alone.

I'm not sure if being a medic in the war was worse than what I went through in my life, but one thing was for sure: being here with my husband was more than I could bear. We didn't share a bed anymore, didn't touch each other much anymore, barely exchanged words other than regarding work, as I believe I said before. I stayed with him because I had nowhere else to go, no matter how much I wanted to leave, but it was also because I was afraid one of his subjects would still end up killing him when I wasn't around. Nowadays he finished his violent subjects with a revolver, but there were some times he wasn't fast enough and they escaped, worsening both our fears, which kept us close together and watching over.

I had begun to think of my husband now worse than what he did, anything he did without any remorse. I had wanted to remain behind in Bolton, but Eric wanted me there, and the reason I went there was because he asked me. We hadn't been together again since that night Herbert murdered and temporarily re-animated businessman Robert Leavitt, but we still spoke. Herbert had no idea of what I'd done when I left him, and I preferred to keep it that way as much as it ate me up inside. And Herbert hadn't killed another human being after Mr. Leavitt, but that didn't change anything between us. The next night after I returned home, he'd apologized, but I didn't trust him, until he followed through on his promise he wouldn't kill another person again.

I can't believe this, but I still love Herbert despite everything, despite what he's doing now and what he will do in the last years of our marriage and time together. If my mother were here, I could hear her putting us both back on track, as forced as all of this seemed. I slept with our friend and colleague that one night, and it had been a mistake, but Eric had been there for me. He gave me what Herbert didn't give me anymore. At this point, I was more than confused at my feelings.

What Herbert has done while serving as a medic for the soldiers was worse than he'd done back in Massachusetts, and it was this that made me sicker than the killing of the businessman. He might have performed his magic on so many soldiers, but for those who weren't so lucky, he didn't do it because he was concerned for the people suffering, and he needed something beyond simply re-animating the dead: he wanted a supply of newly dead soldiers in all stages of dismemberment.

I shared the lab with him, sharing it with him as our private sleeping quarters despite our marriage on the rocks. Though despite his ever cold exterior he still put on for the world to see - and our constant arguments - he wanted me to be on the same page as him again. I wanted so badly to forgive him but found it harder than ever now. I'd wanted him to be the man I always wished he was, a man who showed compassion and sought to conquer death as his result. But his early losses and experiences with our re-animation subjects had hardened him so much. In college, I was with him because he had the dream I did, stated numerous times, but by the time we were married not long before the losses of our children we should have had as well as the living body he'd gotten in our home basement lab, I was afraid of him. But that was also the first time he'd been able to revive a cadaver to full reason.

My stomach lurched at the smell of gore around us as I watched every day how Herbert handled certain body parts when no one was looking, not even Eric. The sounds of bones sawed, flesh ripped and organs spilled...I wanted to pass out, but I would only wake up in the ankle-high, slime-gore floor and vomit there. My husband had become a butcher in comparison to the every day general practitioner everyone in Bolton knew. He'd lost his mind for real, and I knew it. But he insisted on taking the experiments to a whole new level, which was the re-animation of detached body parts. "We're supposed to work on saving whole people, not parts of them," I argued one day, to no avail.

"If we don't try another method of restoring rational thought, what else do you have in mind?" he returned hotly. "I have so many ideas - so many new ones - about how the nerves might be able to function without being attacked to other parts, or perhaps to different ones. You know a reptile has regeneration properties, correct?" He reached behind him and held up the lizard itself. "Its egg fluids are the key. Just think that the body and its lone parts might be able to survive WITHOUT the need of the brain."

I'd said nothing, just glared at him. Looking down at the floor and bringing both my hands up, I saw how little blood I had in contrast to him. But I also glimpsed my wedding ring which I never had in me to take off...and the other one he gave me before our wedding. Rings were supposed to just be objects, but these were given to me by a man who promised I was his everything, before things took a turn for the worse. Marriage was _supposed _to be hard, Mom said once, so long ago. If she was here, I would have told her how right she was.

"Barbara." He sighed then, lowering the lizard back to the table and taking both my hands in his. "Please, my love, look at me." I looked up at him in surprise. This was the first time in a long time I heard him call me his love. My heart was too hard, but I was too off-guard to think straight. "Just...please trust me on this. I know I've been terrible to you all these years now, but we're getting close to restoring rational thought in a subject. We were so close that one time only for it to end as it shouldn't have. You've been with me in everything we've done so far, right? You believed we could do this, or has it been so long you forgot?"

I pulled my hands free, though not harshly. "I did, but that was before this." I motioned to the boney, gorey chaos around us. "The man I love has resorted to the work of a butcher, which is more than I bargained for. I want us to be helping a complete human being, not this."

Herbert looked at me expressionless for a few seconds before shaking his head. "Barbara, everything else we've done haven't gotten us very far. Science is all about pushing boundaries, remember? We'll make better progress if you could at least show me the support you used to." He lowered his head. "Saying I'm sorry won't change it, I know, but I want us to work like we used to. We can't change anything in the past, but we can change the future."

He was right that a simple sorry didn't cut it any slack, but to hear him voice almost the same as I've thought - but my fears were still present - I felt a small glimmer of hope amidst this terrible mass of blood and dead flesh. I nodded, and we went back to work.

However, the downfall occured late in March of 2013, behind the lines which was the hospital where we worked by day. I had prayed then that it was a dream, but Herbert bringing me to the site made it impossible. Eric had been in an aeroplane in the middle of battle before it was shot down, and he wasn't so lucky. I could feel my heart shattering that me and Herbert's cherished friend - and a sharer of the theory of the re-animation of the dead - was gone now, but when the plane crashed on the roof of the hospital. No one had made it there before us just yet, but Herbert recovered the body of Dr. Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee - and showed that his head had been nearly decapitated, showing white bone, gorey red muscles and the likes. Handling our friend the way he did made me nearly fall down the stairs back to where we had our lab set up in the abandoned shed behind the hospital, where no one ever came inside without knocking first.

In the back corner - I really hated dark corners - Herbert kept a large vat of the reptile matter for preservation purposes, other than use in the re-agent. I liked to think that Herbert preserved body parts because he needed them as fresh as they were upon losing life. He'd brought the embalming compound with him, instead choosing to use it for the vat of reptile embryo tissue. I didn't think two separate things would coincide very well, but I didn't question Herbert because he always knew what he was doing. Over time, the stuff had grown puffy and hideous, sickly gray mingled with blue. I helped Herbert get the body of Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee onto our lab table. Then he abandoned us both and retrieved the saw, the silvery blade menacing under the light as he went to work in finishing the job of removing the head all the way and carrying it by the hair to the vat.

"Herbert, after what he went through?!" I cried, getting a glare from him that warned me to not question him any further.

"Of course I sympathize. How could I not for our old friend? But look at him: he was so physically and mentally powerful, even if his genius level doesn't match mine. And he has a splendid nervous system. He's perfect. And all I have to do now is to join the veins and arteries as they should, to keep the blood flowing without spilling a mess." I hesitantly and squeamishly helped him follow through - in my mind, doing this to our friend was wrong on so many levels - with joining the vessels until it was finished off with grafted skin. Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee's body was nothing but a headless figure on our table now, the man who was my classmate from high school and one-night paramour, and our oldest friend and colleague.

The re-agent was administered into the neck, as always, but since the head was no longer attached, it was a little lower in the spinal cord that usual. Outside, while we waited for the usual results, I could hear gunfire and shouting of the battlefield. I managed to look from Eric's headless corpse to Herbert's face, which gleamed under the light of the lamp over the table. I chewed my lip when I looked around at the gore-covered floor and then finally the greenish-yellow glow in the black corner, which held the head of the man between us. I still didn't know how reason could exist without certain parts connected, or how this would ever help anyone now.

Then the body began to twitch, the muscles contracting grotesquely, the chest heaving up and down; a hideous series of breaths sounded without the need of a mouth. I stepped away from the table the same time as Herbert when the body rose on its own, its arms struggling about blindly as though trying to figure out where to go first. Herbert's theory was proven; the body could survive without the brain, but this wasn't how I'd wanted it to be.

_"Jump! For God's sake, jump!"_

That was ERIC'S voice, but it didn't sound like it was wholly him. That voice...it couldn't be classified one. I don't know another way to describe it, other than the fact that it wasn't of this world as much as the hideous material which engulfed it. And its words...it remembered _everything _that happened to it before its end from the sky. Eric had tried to get free from the airplane falling from the sky, but he would have died either way.

Just then, the whole building was wracked with a terrible impact. We were under attack now. I ran around the table to grab my husband by his lab coat sleeve and drag him away from the table; he tried to wrestle free from me. "No, we can't leave him!" he shouted, turning for our subject which now rose from the table and stumbled about, trying to find its head. "He's our success; he's the next step!"

"And we're under attack!" I shouted back, dragging him through the door and snatching up the nearest notebook of our notes we had. "Our lives depend on it. We can't continue if we're dead!"

He didn't argue with me then. So we left our lab behind, all the dead material...and our headless re-animated colleague and his head in the vat.

**Dun dun DUN, here it comes. :) Barbara and Herbert might have reconciled even though it's far from over, her onetime lover a headless zombie now, so you all know what happens in the next chapter. ;D You do NOT wanna miss that. **


	11. The Tomb-Legions

**Here comes the "grand conclusion" - KIDDING - of Herbert West, Re-Animator. But the story does NOT end with the lomb-legions taking away the parts of Herbert West's corpse with them, and his head by the headless Dr. Clapham-Lee. Barbara suffers more than she did in the past when her husband is taken from her, but the pain is short-lived when Dawn is in the picture - though the grief is still there. But for now, comes the climax for the mad scientist who tried to play God but didn't measure the consequences.**

Chapter Eleven

The Tomb-Legions

_Present Day_

Dawn offered to clear the dishes, but I wanted to, since she was the guest, and this was going to be my home again. It felt alive again to have someone else in my life again - mostly in this house. "That was great," she told me as she helped me clean up the kitchen. "So far, not bad of a first day back. At least, nothing bad happening," she added with a little smile. I laughed and agreed with her.

"Would you like a tour of the house?" I offered.

She nodded happily. "Beautiful, so far. This one and the outside hallway."

I showed her the sitting room and everything else on the first floor - but then near the back of the house, we got to a certain door which led downstairs to a certain room...and beside that wall was a window offering a view of the tombstones, in which my heart was seized by fear and forced me to turn away from it. I didn't want to look at it.

"Barbara, what's wrong?" My intern-daughter put her hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me, but I jumped at the contact. I shook my head and told her nothing, but she didn't believe me. "That's where it happened, isn't it? Alright, let's get away from there." I was pleased she understood my state of mind, but another part nagged at my mind that I had to go down there and face IT, eventually.

I brought Dawn upstairs and showed her every room there was...and then we paused at the opened doorway into the study room. This room had dark mahogany panels of walls, Persian carpeting, and candelabra serving as the chandelier as well as a couple on the wall on either side of the framed portrait above the fireplace. Since returning from Flanders, Herbert and I bought this house where we would quietly retire to and spend the last of our days together, spend the evenings in this room when we weren't downstairs as always. For the next two years until his disappearance, we tried to mend our broken marriage until _THEY _came and parted us for the last time.

~o~

_3 years ago_

We left Flanders with haste, the fighting obviously not safe enough for us anymore. We returned to Bolton and to our old home, which felt so strange being back here. It was the same as we remembered it, but I wasn't sure if we could ever remain here now. This was where we first moved and the only home we ever lived since graduating and moving out here to start our practice. How long ago that was, and how times had changed drastically.

"It feels so...strange," Herbert murmured, being the first to enter. "A year ago we were in Canada, far out of the country, out of the state...out of this town. Now it's foreign to me. I feel like a new man."

I looked at him in surprise, shocked at hearing him say that for the first time. "I knew you weren't the same as you were so long ago," I said. "But I never thought I'd hear you say that."

He gave a slight smile. "Because I never noticed until now."

"Just like you never realized you wanted to finally start over fresh until then?" I challenged. "When you finally decided to try your new method with our friend, Eric, wherever he is now? Or if he actually died there." Thinking about Eric as well as mentioning him brought a pang in my body and heart when I realized the loss of another precious person in the world. I realized now that he was gone that I was officially alone, and Herbert was once more all I had. It was just as enormous as when I lost my mother, but that had been different. My onetime lover was gone - but that begged the question, since he was now nothing but a headless walking corpse, I wondered if he truly survived the collapse of our quarters. When I voiced my concerns to my husband, I was stunned by the response.

"If he has, then he's gained more power than the others before him. He shared our theories, and he's likely to come back someday. I wouldn't get too relaxed, my dear." For the first time in forever, I let myself be wrapped in his arms, and the first kiss in that same amount of time was tender and chaste, just a simple peck on the lips. Mine tingled at the sensations shooting through the nerves and down to where my breasts got the same reaction. Herbert actually meant it when he said he wanted to renew things; if there was a way I could try to do the same while we searched for a new place to live, and it wouldn't be here any longer.

I welcomed Herbert back into the bed for a purpose which husband and wife knew too well for the first time in three years.

~o~

I couldn't say before that fantasy and reality were blurred, but I think it was the final night when my husband, Dr. Herbert West, disappeared a year ago. We were just patching things up, getting closer to each other again, even though he still continued his experiments in the basement, when the time finally came.

After all these years, obtaining fresh bodies had not changed a bit. Safe to say it was Herbert's moral undoing, because they were hard to get and their reactions were more murderous than ever. My husband's cool exterior and natural curiosity were also dwindling each day and being overtaken by fears, even when we talked about any subject which escaped when one of us couldn't kill it fast enough. The ones which were still fresh in our memories after sixteen years were the one whose fate we never learned - as well as the thing at the Sefton asylum...but most of all, our headless old friend whom we never met again. The last and most latest of those three was what made the paranoia greater than ever before.

Herbert had proved that the body could exhibit part intelligence without the need of the brain, but he could never be sure as I that we were the only two to survive the bombing.

"It's been years," he said to me one day, "and the police have not caught on yet." He paused to take a few deep, shuddering breaths. "But I can't be too careful, remember?" I nodded, then kissing his cheek and nuzzling it for comfort, making him relaxed only to revert back later.

Herbert and I found a very elegant, old Victorian style estate in Boston, which lay not far south of Arkham. I thought it more grander than our last, and for the first time ever, Herbert expressed gratitude and made me smile - inwardly, I knew he was expecting more of a downstairs laboratory. Included was an incinerator for parts of bodies or whole ones, which was what we never had before, and I suppose I could breathe a sigh of relief. Even more, for Herbert namely for figurative and significant reasons, when the house had, behind it, one of the oldest burial grounds in the existence of Boston - our laboratory was connected to the tomb of the Averill's, which had first been placed in 1768. The tomb and the lab were kept separate by a wall structure of masonry, bared for the world to see, for those who came down to the cellar. To me, it was a symbol of supposed protection from whatever secrets we were supposed to leave undisturbed beneath the ground.

Herbert had been excited to try and uncover the secrets behind the wall which blocked them from centuries-old graves beneath the earth - before his words showed more than he let on. "But perhaps it's best to leave as it is. Digging up bodies now seems unlikely." I agreed with him, happy we were being on the same page again. He smiled down at me then. "I see my loving wife is finally with me again."

"With you now that you've decided to leave something 'holy' alone," I teased, nuzzling his nose with mine. He guffawed gently at my pun use.

"That's a very good one, Barbara dear." Looking up at him, he hadn't changed in sixteen years. His blue eyes were still cold as his air, his arrogance present, his exterior calm, and his face holding its aspect of youth which years and fears never seemed to change. He was handsome as ever, and I wondered if all these years were keeping him forever young.

Sometime in the summer, the end finally came for Herbert West.

It was actually the night of our eight-year wedding anniversary. I couldn't have been happier that he actually decided to do this for us both; I was changing into a black dress with short sleeves and a pleated skirt, the neckline bejeweled that I didn't need a necklace. I found Herbert in the dining room, where he prepared a fancy dinner of steak covered with balsamic tomatoes, the glasses filled with red wine. It was as though eight years of hell were beginning to jerk in another direction in a really small way.

I gasped at the opened box Herbert put in front of my face. The earrings and necklace were both unbroken circles of diamonds burning from their very centers with more fire than any other in existence. A silent message of burning love since the day we met. "Scientific symbol of everlasting love," Herbert whispered, his smile sweet and soft, no trace of ice or menace. Just the man I married eight years ago showing me he wanted to mend everything with me. I gave him a kiss in response instead of telling him the words directly.

He took me to bed after dinner where we made love and lit the fire more than before. It dawned on me that keeping the fire out that long meant the hotter it returned with a vengeance. We weren't even in the mood of going to sleep right away either, instead choosing to leave the bed and making way for the study for just us sitting by the fireplace and holding onto each other, no words spoken. The flames flickered gold and amber in the darkness of the room, helping with the mood. I felt my body getting lighter and lighter, wanting to fall asleep here in Herbert's arms...

And then it was ruined. "Oh, God, look at this!" Herbert was up in a flash, reaching over to the table between us in the loveseat and the fireplace, grabbing the newspaper which had the terrible title in which a nameless Titan claw grabbed at us with sixteen years' worth.

"'Sefton Asylum Suffers Horrific Tragedy'," I whispered as I leaned in to read the story with him.

_Early this morning, at Sefton Asylum which rests not far from Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham, a fearsome incident occurred, stunning the neighborhood and baffling the police. A group of strange, unidentified men were reported to have approached the receptionist's desk - led by a man wearing a Canadian officer's uniform and accompanied by a larger man whose face seemed to have been halfway devoured by an unknown virus. _

_As for the leading man himself, he was, in the eyes of the witnesses who lived, a "menacing military figure who talked without moving his lips", and when the light fell on his handsome face, his flesh glazed like that of a dummy or any doll known, and his eyes looked like painted glass. Some nameless accident had befallen the man, who demanded the custody of the cannibal monster - who was reported to have resembled the late Dean Alan Halsey of Miskatonic Medical - who had been committed sixteen years prior. When he was refused, he let loose the signal which resulted in a riot that left blood on the floors and walls, beating and trampling anyone in their path. Four were dead, but the rest were injured and unconscious when they finally claimed prize of the creature. But before the police could arrive in time, the men and the claimed fugitive vanished without a trace. _

_The survivors who recalled the damage done swore to authorities that the attackers acted more like animals than humans, acting at the signal of the wax-faced, still unidentified man. From then on, the police are still investigating the deed._

I felt like I wanted to pass out. So it WAS him - he was back, with the help of the escaped subjects of ours, and they'd claimed the re-animated Dr. Halsey after all these years. I knew this was the moment of truth, and they would be coming here soon. "So, it's as we both feared," Herbert whispered. Looking up at him, I saw his face paler than normal, absolutely drained of blood. "Clapham-Lee is coming for us."

I knew we had to try to defend ourselves, but how could we when it was not only him, not only his brutish escort and the cannibal Halsey - but who knew how many others with them? We wouldn't stand a chance. But still, I had to try and do something. Leaving him, I began to check all the windows - we had an automatic, updated security system where we pressed a button and the steel curtain/doors would cover the glass - as well as make sure all the doors were locked. I wasn't sure if this would stop them, but it was worth a try. By the time I was finished, I returned to my husband, who was still sitting in the study room in a nearly paralyzed state. The story in the paper really did it to his poor mind. Sitting back beside him, I took his hand into mine, massaging it gently and tracing the soft gold band around his ring finger.

Nothing worked. Nothing got his attention. He remained that way up until midnight, when the doorbell finally rang, startling us both, but mostly him. He jumped up so fast he almost fell onto the table in front of us.

They were here.

"Herbert, please, be calm," I tried to assure him, but I was just as afraid as he was. Since I was an accomplice the whole time, I was ready to fight to the death, and if we lost, at least I'd die with the man I love than alone. He didn't respond. I turned behind me to grab the shotgun off the mantle and load it, but Herbert stopped me.

"There is no use of that now, darling," he said, voice devoid of any sort of emotion. After sixteen years, his condition was more ghastly; no longer was he the excited young man I first met in medical school. His sins had finally come back to taken revenge, and he was about to pay the price for it. I was ready to join him, because I had a part in it. "It's the finish. We head to the basement, where all our life's work is held."

I seethed when I followed him downstairs to the laboratory, locking the door behind us because we both knew the tomb masonry wouldn't be touched - but how wrong we would be proven. I had put down the shotgun on the lab table and grabbed a bag of my own while he did the same. We grabbed as much of what we could - notes and all - and were prepared to leave when Herbert stopped and pointed out the falling plaster above where the tomb masonry was. I stayed by his side, not wanting to leave him alone in this. The door was locked upstairs, by my hand, and I regretted it now. I still don't know why I did that, but maybe instinct told me to.

A gush of wind, colder than winter itself, came from somewhere in the room. There were no windows in the basement, but then there was the masonry coming apart from the inside - brick by brick slolwy removed, and more deathly cold wind filled the room, as well as the worst smell I'd ever caught with my nostrils in my entire life. The light went out, but we both could still see the outlines of the revealed tomb entrance - and a dull, bluish gray light from there - as well as the silent moving figures making way towards us. Herbert and I dropped the bags holding the work we spent our whole lives doing together, choosing to hold onto each other now. It seemed all that mattered now was the both of us together. The beings had outlines going from human to half-human, fractionally and NOT at all - these things were the results of the grisly life we made around us, of trial and error.

And in the lead was the man in the Canadian officer's uniform, behind him his malady-digested bodyguard. Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee, his head long gone and replaced with a beautiful head made of wax.

"_Barbara_." His voice was the same as I remembered, but a much darker, unearthly tone that belonged to the damaged mind and ear's senses. Enough to prevent you from sleeping at night. "_Hold her_," he ordered the larger "man", who left him as he was and moved for my way. I tried to run or maybe stay beside Herbert, but the beast grabbed me by both arms and held me in place, tore me from Herbert's arms the same time as the others sprang forward and took him into their midst. He did not resist or say a word. I thought they would tear him to pieces because they were no more human; I also wondered how they could file so organized together, before the idea lit up in my frightened brain that Clapham-Lee had months of practice and gained more intelligence than he did in his previous life. But re-animation changed him altogether from the man I knew in younger days and my damaged married life.

A mistake I regret completely now, even more since I kept the secret of Eric and I together from Herbert.

Who was now carried overhead the group of monsters and into the vault of abomination, finally calling out my name to him as well as the three simple words we did not exchange often but knew too well: "Barbara...I love you!"

"I love you, too, Herbert!" I cried back, feeling myself shrink against my captor. As he disappeared, I saw the blue eyes behind the glasses blazing horribly with their first touch of frantic visible emotion - he was afraid of whatever fate was waiting for him in what would now be called his tomb.

**So, there you go, everybody. The Re-Animator met his fate...but we are FAR from over. No spoilers, but read and find out! :D**


	12. Date at Midnight

**Now that the part of the story taking on the whole six parts is out of the way, here comes post events. Barbara is haunted by the memories, and late at exactly midnight she gets an "unexpected visitor". This chapter is now taking a turn thanks to "The Evil Clergyman", a half-hour short starring the fabulous Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton (Herbert West and Megan Halsey). :D**

Chapter Twelve

Date at Midnight

_Present Day_

I never told the police the truth because they never would have believed me. I don't remember what happened to me that night my husband was carried away into the tomb, but that my world went dark around me, and I awoke sometime later, finding that he was still gone - the work gone, too - and that the tomb masonry was back in place as though it had never been touched in the first place.

It was our daytime maid who found me unconscious in the morning. Christina was Hispanic and in her early thirties, treated like family by me rather than a servant; Herbert had given her the night off before so it was just the two of us...but now it was just me. She'd unlocked the basement door and came down to find me out as though someone had done the deed. The shotgun was gone, so I assumed the zombies took it with them. When Christina tried asking me what happened, I told her that I did not remember much, even asked her where my husband was.

My question had baffled her, alright. The police came to the house, asked me questions, but what could I really tell them? They'd never be able to connect the Sefton tragedy with Herbert West, and they certainly would NEVER know about the tomb masonry. They would only laugh it off, call me insane. No DNA or fingerprints were found anywhere except on the empty cupboard doors, and they were mine and Herbert's, but nothing to tie to his disappearance. They pointed no fingers to me, either. But that did not make me feel any safer.

Herbert West was gone. Taken away by his own experiments. For all I knew from then on, he was dead. How could they keep him alive that long for what he did to them? You don't just go around creating monsters and not expect them to fight back.

Now I sat on the very same loveseat in the very same study room, before the fireplace which was now devoid of life. This was where we spent our last moments of solace before they came for him. I felt my cheeks burn with the tears that had begun to stream. I'd made the decision to sell this house and let Christina continue to take care of it for her next owners, but the house was never bought again, according to Mrs. Jensen, no matter her efforts. Now I had it in me to come back here; I'd lived in Arkham for the last year, choosing to return there, and that was when I was offered to teach classes, which brought me Dawn who made my days brighter.

But none of it erased the memory of what happened a year ago on this very day, which I purposefully avoided celebrating like Herbert and I did that night, which was supposed to be the happiest night of our lives as the day we were married.

"I wish they took me with him," I croaked, leaning away from Dawn who sat down beside me. "I was with him the whole time; we were best friends and partners, then we vowed to be together and conquer death together...but then they came for him. They came and left me alive." My throat was sore from crying. "I deserved it all, for helping with tampering with Mother Nature."

"You made a mistake, yes, but you were trying to keep him in line, too," Dawn assured me. "I know I wasn't there, but it was sick. But he didn't deserve that, and you didn't deserve to suffer like this." I was so grateful that I had a support system now that Herbert wasn't here with me anymore. I leaned into her and sniffled, crying with her for awhile until she left just before the sun went down.

~o~

It had been nice to have Dawn over, but when she left, I felt alone once more. When was I ever going to be happy again? It was a long process, a long road to recovery...recovery, something I never got. I never got any peace of my mind because I was slowly eaten alive day by day. My therapist had tried telling me reliving the past over and over wasn't healthy; I took antidepressants to keep myself stable, but it would always return.

I went to bed early that night, just with nothing better to do. For the first few hours I tossed and turned, afraid to go to sleep. I did not sleep much anymore despite little to no bad dreams - when I _did _have them, I remembered the look in Herbert's eyes when he confessed his love for me and said my name one last time. I did the same, and when I did, it felt more real than ever. Years of suffering, of hard work, had brought us to the end it did. I had given up the experiments he did when I knew nobody would ever be able to conquer death. What we did hadn't done the trick.

Death was what made life worth living; our world was always limited, so where would the extras be placed if there was little for them? When people always asked for anything and craved it so bad? The world was large, but that didn't mean it was limitless. I came to that conclusion after Herbert was gone.

I had made sure everything was locked; it was a good thing the security system was the same as ever. Mrs. Jensen had the gall to question me about it regarding my husband. But there was one door I'd forgotten to check, and that was the one in the bedroom I was now in: the master bedroom, which I once shared with Herbert, where we made up for lost times.

The master bedroom held both Old World and exotic tones, giving us a transport to paradise and escaping to be with each other. Nestled beneath soft chenille and cotton, I drew the covers up and tried desperately to sleep this first night. I found myself facing the door to my left - the door which led out to a balcony which offered a view of the back of the estate. Nature's beauty - a beauty which my late husband and I tried to destroy. Who knew where Eric and his zombie followers were now.

I had not heard anything related to unseen monsters killing and leaving a gory mess or anything of the sorts in the last year. But that didn't shake the knowing fear from my system.

Staring at the door, moonlight streaming through the glass, I could hear and feel my heart pounding against my chest, my ribs hurting with the pressure. I couldn't help but get the horrible feeling that someone - or _something _was watching me through the window...

I screamed when I saw something suddenly rise in front of me. Quickly, I rolled over and away to the other side of the bed, accidentally falling out without getting up. Hitting the floor was numbing, but I scrambled away for the door, trying to get away from the unexpected and unwelcomed visitor whom I had no idea got in here, or HOW, without triggering any alarms. All I knew was that I had to get away and fast.

But I never made it in time to the door, still crawling on all fours. The "visitor" stopped in front of the door. I paused in terror, pausing to stare at a pair of bare feet attached to ankles with horrendous stitching, like Frankenstein. Continuing, the legs were normal until getting to being attached to their places beneath the lower body, where I also glimpsed the most private section, giving away that the visitor was a man; however, while the genitals were unmarred as they should be, pubic hair was absent. The waist and lower abdomen were also sutured together, and from the middle section of the abdomen was a long jagged line going over the navel as making it nonexistent, between the valley in the middle of his soft pectoral muscles, stopping at the stitching of his neck to between his shoulders.

The face was untouched, the blue eyes behind a pair of spectacles bearing down at her dully but still intelligent. The face of Herbert West smiling down at me in the most sinister way I'd seen him look at the subjects.

Shrieking, I bolted up, but when I did, I found I was in my own bed. The Frankenstein form of my lost spouse was nowhere in sight. It had all been a dream. But I was sweating cold with fright. Sometimes I wished I could take something to keep me from dreaming, but as a doctor, no dreams meant your brain dies.

And then I found myself looking back to the door to my side. I knew I wasn't dreaming when I saw the dark silhouette of a human standing outside. Or was it really a living human - perhaps it was one of the things of the past choosing this hour of the night, which was a quarter to midnight and nearing the end of the day. Perfect timing, I thought sarcastically. Unlike my dream, I reached for the nightstand drawer and pulled out my loaded pistol, taking off the safety and ready to shoot the target, as I heard the lock click and the doorknob turn.

The door was slowly pushed open, and when it did, a hand came around to rest on the doorframe. I faintly but clearly saw the shine of a _wedding ring_. I believe I heard myself gasp but kept my weapon aimed. Could it be...?

"Barbara..."

No, it couldn't be him! He was TAKEN away in front of my eyes; I hadn't seen or heard from him in a year, and by now he was believed to be dead. I watched with shaky breaths as the person stepped in slowly and gracefully. The moonlight was still shining, and as its beams bore down on the body, I saw no hideous Frankenstein stitchery, just a normal body but unclothed as I remembered. The glasses reflected the light, so I couldn't see the eyes well, but the face... "_Herbert!_" I dropped the gun back into the drawer after putting the safety on, leaping out of bed and throwing myself at my newly found husband whom I had thought was dead.

But the moment my arms wrapped around him, he was cold as ice, nearly hard as marble. "Oh, my God, Herbert, what's happened to you?" I pulled back to put my hand on his chest, feeling a heartbeat still, but why was he so cold? I looked into his eyes, no longer seeing the driven passion and intensity in his blue eyes; instead, I saw broken sadness. I felt my heart break from both the sight and the fact that he finally came back to me.

"Barbara." He sounded like saying my name was new and strange to him, like we were strangers instead of separated husband and wife. "I've missed you."

"I saw them take you away," I blurted out. "I thought you were dead; everyone did. I didn't know where to look. What did HE do to you?"

Herbert sighed and shook his head. "My love, I have so much to tell you, but tonight I want to just be with you. I have so many regrets that I want to put aside the truth and just spend the last of my damaged anniversary with my wife. I've waited so long to see you again, Barbara," he whispered, reaching up to take my face in both hands. I believe I was crying again because both his thumbs wiped them away, and he leaned forward and kissed me. His lips were still so soft, so warm unlike the rest of his body. I wanted more of him, passion overtaking reason.

I moaned when he gently parted from me. "Oh, Herbert." I ran my hands up his marble chest and briefly played with his nipples, hard as pebbles. He moaned at the sensations he was still able to have. If he was dead, would he not have a heartbeat? Or perhaps it was the cold night air and the fact he'd escaped from Clapham-Lee, wherever he was now, and walked the whole way with no clothes on. Then I brought my hands lower down over his firm stomach and found the rough curls above his hard member. I drew back and removed my red satin slip and climbed back into bed.

He followed and climbed in with me, under the covers, slipping between my legs, the tip of his manhood pressing against my wet slit. He shivered gently at the feel of my nest against him again. I don't remember him being _this_ desperate; what did Eric do to him to make him so soft? "Herbert?" I hadn't been with anyone since he vanished, and I had no idea how to describe the pleasure I was feeling now that my husband and I were once again as one. I whimpered when he slowly sheated into me, taking away my speech patterns.

"Sssh, no more discussion," he breathed, leaning down and kissing me again. His hand reached up to cup my cheek, my hands going up into his hair and massaging his skull. He murmured something wordless before speaking with them. "I spent the last year among the dead, my love, and I want to spend the rest of our anniversary night alive again. My body needs yours more than ever." I acquiesced and surrendered my body's desires to mate with his then, his hips meeting mine and washing over with the speed of tidal waves, the waters of bliss more powerful than our last night together.

**Awww, it was so sweet. Poor Herbert is so broken by whatever Clapham-Lee did to him, which will be revealed in the next chapter. Stay tuned!**


	13. Morning After Argument

**Since Herbert West is alive and well, he reveals to Barbara what happened while he was imprisoned by their headless former friend. And what Clapham-Lee plans next - plus some renewed heated arguing in which a certain long-buried secret is revealed. :O**

Chapter Thirteen

Morning After Argument

My body felt warm and alive again, and I believe I slept much better than I did in a long time. When I opened my eyes to morning light, it was about eight in the morning; Mrs. Jensen said she wouldn't come until ten, but I still had to get up. When I sat up, I noticed the bed was empty save for myself. Looking around for my husband, I was about to call his name when I spotted him sitting in the armchair beside the fireplace. He was staring ahead at nothing in particular, and upon sensing that I was awake now, he turned his attention to me now. "Didn't you sleep last night?" I asked, climbing out of bed and ready for a shower.

He shook his head. "I don't sleep anymore. And I don't eat much anymore, either."

I was still as nude as he was when I walked over to him and knelt before him. It was just the two of us, and we both knew each other's bodies so well we didn't care about exposure. "Herbert, please tell me before she comes. What did he do to you?"

He frowned. "'She'?" he repeated.

"Mrs. Jensen," I clarified.

"Ah." He laughed, but it wasn't humorous. "Should have guessed. Buying this place again after what happened. To think it would be through her again."

I nodded, though judging by the tone I knew well, he had been keeping tabs on me this whole time. "So, you knew about this. And you know I've been back in Arkham, and I currently teach classes at our _alma mater_, and my intern..."

Herbert nodded, too, reaching over to brush some strands of my hair out of my face. "She made you happy; she's the child we couldn't have." His whole face became crestfallen. "I still feel terrible about the..." He trailed off, but I knew he was referring to the second miscarriage which sealed it all. "I tried making it up to you after that." I stood up and leaned to kiss him briefly before going to the closet.

"You still didn't answer my question."

"Ah, yes. Well, the night our old friend and his followers came for me, they carried me through the caverns beneath the earth. I suppose you could call it the literal form of Hell," he answered with a slight laugh, his eyes suddenly flashing when he saw me pick out a fiesta-red keyhole neck dress that looked like it was made for dancing, which faded as he continued his story. "Everything was so cold and smelling extremely putrid; you'd think I was used to those things, given the times we handled the bodies."

"_You_ did most of that yourself," I corrected, waving my finger at him.

Herbert snorted. "You still haven't changed your view about the experiments with various parts, I see."

I sat down at the foot of the bed and raised both my eyebrows at him. "If you hadn't done that - most of all, took Eric's head - he and those things wouldn't have torn us apart."

"But we also got far as to prove that rational thought existed without - "

"I stopped the experiments after you were gone," I interrupted. "I gave it all up completely because it ruined my life. OUR lives."

He stood from the chair then and towered over me. "You gave up," he stated, emotionlessly so I couldn't read him at all. "I knew you would. Once I was gone, you wanted to get on with your life."

I felt like I'd been smacked in the face when he accused me of giving up everything we had. "I may have given up this sick work, because we were going nowhere, but that didn't mean I gave up on you," I returned. "He took you somewhere no one would find you. He took the work, too."

"Indeed," Herbert spat, lowering his eyes. "That's why he's kept me imprisoned with him. For a week, beneath the Averill's tomb, he kept me naked and suspended by chains, depriving me of food and water - what use would the dead have of those things, anyway? I hung there, starved and dehydrated, knowing I was dying and feared it because that was why I tried to defeat my enemy once and for all. I was barely aware of much of anything else before the seventh and final day when Clapham-Lee came to me with a syringe of re-agent."

I knew where he was going with this; my brain was telling me to hurry to the bathroom now and clean before Mrs. Jensen came, but my feet remained glued to the floor as my husband detailed the days of his capture and suspension before he was near death when... "He gave you your own medicine. He gave you life when you were getting close instead of when the exact moment came."

His chilling smile was back. "He did. Proved a new idea for me...if only it were easy to obtain a dying person when they near it." His smile faded then. "But I don't see that happening. A year of incarceration has forced me to rethink everything over, and what he forced me to do in the event of time. That is why I am here."

I could feel my spine chilling again. Eric had my husband in his clutches for the past year, had the work in his possession...so I knew he was planning something. "What is he planning?" I asked, feeling like I was so long ago every time during an experiment and after.

Before he could answer, the doorbell rang. "Damn it! She's here." She was here so soon! I hurriedly threw the dress on and brushed my hair, not caring about a shower until she was gone. It was barely half past eight, and Mrs. Jensen had a habit of being early sometimes. I should have expected it. "Hide in the closet until she's gone," I told my husband before leaving.

Mrs. Jensen looked me over with a scrutinizing eye when I answered. "Oh, fired up, eh? Never thought I'd see the bereaved widow in such a state after a single day. It's unlikely." Her gaze traveled back up to my face when I stepped aside to let her in. "Not to mention you look different."

I gave her a calm smile, though I was fuming internally as much as the color of my dress. "I _feel_ different. Like a new woman. Staying here WAS a good idea after all." Staying here, resulting in a late night reunion with my husband, but there was still the matter of settling scores with our old friend. "Now, the papers?" I asked the agent, wanting to get this over with now so I could return to Herbert and hear more on Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee.

~o~

She left before ten o'clock, and I was left alone once again. This time I didn't feel hollow like I did yesterday. I had come here to find closure and had done so in the most unusual way unimagined. After closing the door, I turned behind me to look at the carved staircase where Herbert was still waiting for me upstairs. I was happy he remained there the whole time, but what do you expect after being dead/missing for a year?

He was laying on the bed, legs crossed and one hand behind his head while the other lay over his abdomen. I thought him so irresistible I wanted a repeat of last night, but first I needed to head out to town to get him some clothes. He couldn't just walk around the house nude as the day he was born the whole time. He'd suffered enough in the last year. "I'm going out," I told him.

"To where?" he asked with some boredom.

"Get you something to wear."

He laughed, now humorous. "After a year, I finally get my manhood back. Not that I've had any since Clapham-Lee stripped me of it," he muttered, turning his face away from me, away from the door to his left. He then rolled over onto his side, back facing the door, and I glimpsed his delicately arched back and firm rear end I remember fondling a few times and he would growl that I was debasing him.

I returned not long after with a light blue collared shirt, black tie, slacks and shoes. I just wanted Herbert to feel like himself again, and when I brought them home, he was in the kitchen, exploring the house to try and get used to his surroundings again, and his eyes which matched the shirt lit up. "Honey, you shouldn't have." I turned my face away so he could get dressed. "Why are you turning away from me? It's not like my body is a stranger to your eyes, you know."

"You're right." I turned back to him, and by that time, he was slipping on his shirt and buttoning it up. As I watched, I just remembered he never answered my question. "Herbert, you never directly said what he's planning to do with what used to be our work."

"Hmm." He turned to face me all the way, leaning into the kitchen counter, looking off to the side with the look on his face that said he was trying to put it the best way he could. "After I was revived, he informed me that I was better useful than dead, so I did the deed of going out to get him the freshest head I could find, and I got him the head of an executed murderer. I thought it would insult him as much as I thought it was fun, but he gave no complaints, just so long as he wanted a head in place of the one I took from him."

So he got some head again. The joke would have been funny if talking about it wasn't. "So he's back to himself, but he's not happy with what happened to him," I stated, obviously, "but what does this have to do with me now?"

"The fact that you and him had gotten to be so much closer than you should have been one certain night."

I stiffened. Oh, good God, there was THAT form of the past coming back. And they said keeping a secret that long meant the harder and louder it blew up. I braced myself. "What's the use, then, in keeping this from you?" I answered, seeing the venom in his whole face. "The night you killed Leavitt and brought him back, I didn't go to a motel. I believe what I'm going to say next should mirror whatever Eric told you."

His voice turned into a beastly snarl, matching his features. "You beguiled and deceived me. My wife whom I took vows with, gave my life and everything to work side by side with - even for one night - spent the night in the bed with another man. None other than our associate and your old friend from school." He let loose another laugh, choked up and furious. Hurt worse than he had ever been. Now the secret I kept so long from him was out and it would surely make things worse between us now. What an idiot I was.

"I'm sorry, Herbert," I said. Those words never simply did it any good, but they were out anyways. Good way to spend the morning after our reunion, I thought sarcastically.

He exploded. "SORRY?!" He rounded on me from facing the counter. "You were unfaithful to me with the man who took me away, starved me to death and gave me a dose of my own re-agent, and sorry is all you can say?!"

"Because you weren't the man I was in love with, in case you forgot then!" I returned, the heated fury of that night coming back with a vengeance. "I couldn't stand you that night, so I went to Eric because he was the last form of human contact I could grasp. Eric made me feel better, but that was the first and only time it was us together. It was one night but didn't mean the same as I feel for you."

Herbert sneered at me. "You call love keeping secrets?"

"Just as you kept the secret of Robert Leavitt from me!"

"Oh, and we're still going on about this? That was the first and only time I killed a man." He groaned and threw his hands over his head. "I thought we put this business behind us a long time ago."

"So, it would be stupid to ask if you - "

Herbert held up his hand. "Stop right there. And yes, I'm mad. Correction: I'm heartbroken that you kept this from me." His face had been harder than the Statue of Liberty before it softened like the sea in its calmest form. "But...I still love you despite it. I understand why you did it, and we both made mistakes. And yet in spite of everything, we've made our marriage work until...that night," he finished hesitantly.

Of all the things, I wasn't expecting this. Guilty or not, I'd deserved the verbal treatment for betraying my vows to him. But Herbert was always so easy to forgive, or at least try to get me to do the same when for a woman it was never that easy. He was looking at me and smiling, waiting for my answer. "Yes, you're right." I was walking towards him, ready to embrace him when the phone on the kitchen counter frightened us both - me mostly. I answered it. "Hello?" I had no idea who could have gotten this number; I'd made arrangements ahead of time to have a new one installed, so nobody but Dawn had this.

_"Barbara, I'm in trouble!"_

I looked up at Herbert frantically. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he leaned in so we both shared the phone together. "Dawn, what's going on?" I demanded, before I heard a crackle, and a familiar demonic voice I hadn't heard since one year before.

_"Hello, Barbara. Long time no hear."_

"Eric," I said, terrified now. "What are you doing to her?"

He laughed cruelly and maniacally. _"Nothing yet, but I know he's with you. But you won't find us anywhere in Boston or Arkham; I'm surprised he hasn't gotten to telling you about this yet. I took the girl far from here, where we can be away from the town's eye and make the exchange."_

"What exchange?" I said, gritting my teeth in infuriation. "Eric, I know you hate my husband for what he did to you, but..."

He interrupted me. _"Of course, I hate him, sweetheart," _he hissed. _"Just as I hate you more for so much as being married to that son of a bitch who took my head from me. Dealing with the devil, and look what he did to me. I paid him back then, and now I get my chance a year later." _I was about to say more before he went on. _"Now, you know where we might be. We've gone back to the place where it all began, but not in the place my old head was taken. Another spot more isolated, so go beyond the boundaries of Flanders. Just like you both went beyond the boundaries of science." _

The line went dead then. I stared at it in horror. He had Dawn. He had her, the work still, perhaps an army of the re-animated waiting...and wanted an exchange for WHAT? I looked up when Herbert broke the silence as though reading my mind.

"That was what I tried to tell you, Barbara. He has Dawn because he wants you. He always wanted you."

**Oops, yeah, Dawn's kidnapped and Clapham-Lee wants Barbara. The work isn't important, but her. Kinda similar to the movie, but I thought it suitable. :) **


	14. Salvation

**Planning the climax was harder than normal, because this is the original by Lovecraft in modern days not much related to the movie, but the location where it plays out will be similar to "Bride", though not the same. This chapter is the end of this fun yet horrific tale, so I hope you enjoyed every bit of it. :D **

Chapter Fourteen

Salvation

I clutched onto Herbert, fearing for Dawn's life. I worried what if he killed her before we could get to her, but the rational part of my brain said that he wouldn't because he LOVED me too much. I wasn't a young woman much anymore who didn't know who to think about certain things, and that one night of us together taught me enough. He was in love with me all this time but never told me; I knew it all along, and it made me ill. I loved Herbert West, and this was Eric's first and only chance now to break us apart for the officially final time.

"Herbert, we have to go to her," I said, drawing back to look up at him.

"I know, but we can't just go in there," he answered. "We have to prepare ourselves and then means to fly over there. I trust you have your pistol with you?" His eyes twinkled with mischief.

"You know I do," I answered, smiling a little through my tears. "But I need to arm you, and I need to call the hospital to tell them I am sick. And if they mention Dawn to me, I'll say that they ought to mark her as well, since we all know she never misses out unless absolute emergency." And _this_ was an absolute emergency. I had another life who meant near and dear to me to rescue with my husband whom she would meet finally.

~o~

I booked us both a flight by night, and we would be in Ottawa before morning. No one would be at the site we both knew Clapham-Lee would be, with Dawn and his zombies which had originally been made by Herbert's hand. On the plane, in first class so we had only each other, I leaned in close to him, feeling safer than before. We spoke in whispers the whole time; he told me more of his terrible experiences where Eric would force him to make more batches of re-agent, stealing from hospitals around and always moving to avoid capture. I never took Eric to care for this, but now I saw that beyond death had made him even more insane than before; he was planning to use all our years of hard work and set about the world making more monsters. But first, that meant getting me by his side and getting Herbert out of the picture. But what would happen to Dawn then?

"I'm sorry, Barbara," he whispered, nuzzling his lips into my hair. "You were right about the thing with parts. All this time, and being half-dead, half-alive nearly caused me to lose you. I thought I would never see you again, the only woman I thought I would never have taken from me."

He was apologizing to me, finally admitting I was right all these years. I never thought I would hear those words from him, and I would have found it hard to believe. But Herbert was anything but a liar or leader on a false sense of security. "I forgive you," I told him, reaching up to cup his chin and bring him down for another kiss. After all of this was over, I had no idea how we were going to explain to the police or anyone where he'd been all this time. I wanted us to start over and live a normal life, ask the hospital to let him back in amongst their staff; I couldn't imagine the great Herbert West sitting couped in the house all day with not much to do.

When our plane touched down, we found ourselves in the place we were in three years ago - and where the horror took place and followed us back a long way home. And where we would return to the past.

Not far from the abandoned wreck of the hospital where we served during the war - and went beyond simply re-animating the dead - was one of many old army bunkers which had always been used during both World Wars and during the Cold War. They were used not only during cases of tornados, but also for storage and as command centers, and harboring all the weapons. We'd been there for our own cases of weaponry when the chances arose. When the hospital was bombed and everyone retreated, the station was abandoned, so the weapons and everything had to be inside still...if Eric hadn't touched anything.

Standing out here in our borrowed jeep was foreboding to my senses; I didn't know about Herbert, though, but I knew he didn't enjoy being here either. The entrance in that vast hill of rock and earth was dark and beckoning us to trouble awaiting for us both. Herbert had been driving; he did remarkably well for someone who hadn't driven a vehicle in a year. He was the first out and then helped me out. We approached the entrance, pulling out our weapons and approaching as though we were members of the FBI or CSI, or somewhere. We said nothing to each other as we approached the opened doorway; they knew we were coming and made it easy for us...but we both knew it wouldn't be easy to escape.

"So, you find Dawn and get out of here," I whispered to my husband, "and I look for Eric."

He shook his head; this was part of the plan we still couldn't agree on. "Darling, if we activate the bomb and you're not out in time..."

"Herbert, we'll do what we have to," I interrupted, knowing well. "In case something happens to me, get Dawn away as far as you can." I looked up at him and smiled. "I believed in you from the beginning, Herbert, in spite of everything that went wrong, so I know you'll take care of Dawn for me." He opened his mouth to protest, but I lowered my weapon and brought my free hand up to his face and down to mine for a kiss of luck. I might have meant what I said, but I really wanted to get out alive with my husband and our sort-of-adopted daughter whom he deserved to meet.

~o~

It was like walking down a tunnel that had no end. I knew I couldn't slow down and watch out for danger every time; Herbert and I had parted awhile before, him going to the right as I chose the left, and I have to say that I don't think I was as scared as I was before, but that didn't erase the thought of the possible fate I would meet. The bunker had several hallways, and I was going to scout every one until I saw the man I was looking for.

At the end of the hall, I saw two horribly mismatched figures - now two more coming in, and blocking my way, snarling as they approached me, but I raised my gun and fired them all once in the head, shooting them dead again to the ground. The lights didn't even flicker overhead as I was expecting, but I was ready for them to go out and draw my mini flashlight, small as it was.

There was a doorway against the wall to my left, and I recognized it as the main control center. I thought I detected HIM there, but there was only one way to find out - reaching over and slowly turning the knob, I suddenly stopped at the sound of _his _voice.

_"You came at the perfect timing, Barbara."_

The door closed behind me, but it didn't lock. He was alone, surrounded only by machinery and control panels, marking it as though we were in a science fiction movie combined with horror. He was facing me, dark-haired as I remembered, but a different face altogether which was still handsome. I felt like I was Belle and he was Gaston; comparing real life to an animated fairytale adaptation was really ridiculous. I stepped further in; I'd hid my weapon deep in the confides of my dress from his eyes before I came in.

_"You're alone, good," _he noted with a smile. _"Now it's just you and me before the party finishes its course."_

I burst out laughing, my heart beginning to pick up its pace. I had no idea if it was because I was beginning to get braver with each second now that I was once more in the presence of the man who ordered my husband taken from me, or if I was actually still very afraid and had no idea. Either way, I had a few tricks now up my sleeve I knew I could use to distract him as long as Herbert found Dawn and they set up the bombs somewhere, and however they dodged those things out in the halls. I stepped forward towards the man with a different face. "Just how long do you estimate it will end?" I asked, careful not to get my husband in trouble.

Eric chuckled as he looked me over. _"It will be awhile, before I make the decision to order my 'men' to rejoin. I thought it would make things...easier," _he purred. _"I left your precious student somewhere else from here, but if I told you, it would spoil the surprise. Which means your...husband is gonna be taking his time. Gives US plenty of time alone, my love."_

I decided to play this particular card against him. "How long have you...loved me, Eric?" I asked, my heart beating faster as I began to undo the back of the keyhole neck of my dress. His eyes flashed.

_"Long since we were children, Barbara. I always have, never stopped thinking about you, since I was married. But you were always on my mind, and it was you and that madman." _He hissed angrily, and I paused where I was; my neckline was halfway down to exposing my breasts to him. _"It sickened me that you chose a psychopath over me...but no matter." _That smile was back. _"I don't care if you changed or not; you will always be the Barbara I knew when I was a younger man."_

If he were wholly alive again, if he were the same man I knew before he died and was brought back, I would have been less disgusted than I was now. He didn't know that I wasn't that girl anymore, didn't care either even if he _did _know. Death changed everything in time. I didn't realized I'd let my top drop to show both my breasts to him until he spoke again. _"Now that's a delectable sight I haven't seen since our time together."_

"And it will be the last time you will."

I spun around; neither of us had heard the door open. "Herbert!" I quickly fixed my top back into place and started for him before Eric grabbed my wrist and pulled me closer to him. I struggled, but he was stronger than I was.

_"I don't think so, West," _he rasped. _"She's mine now."_

"We set a bomb in the hallway, and it will go off in five minutes if you don't give me my wife this instant," Herbert growled, brandishing his pistol, motioning Dawn to get behind him. Being kidnapped had done a number on the poor girl that it broke my heart.

_"Well, good. Because this is the moment I've waited for, then. But it's not something you tell someone right away until the moment is right." _I managed to turn my head around and looked at him. What was he implying? Did he mean that he wanted to die this way?! As though reading my mind, he smirked down at me. _"I've been dead for three years, sweetheart. It hasn't been as fun as it should have been. Conquering death is a wonderful dream for every doctor, including you and your husband. But it's a dream that will never be realized. I know you realized it, Barbara. And you must do the same now, Herbert." _He looked up at him once more.

_"It's a fool's hope, and being on the run and hiding from the world. I knew from my original headless appearance that I would be called a freak, and now with how I am now. The world will never know about us, and not only that, I wanted to spend the last day of this world with you," _he whispered, turning me around to look at him, then spun me around so his back faced Herbert. _"It's blissful to know I won't go up with this place alone. It'll be with you, the woman I love and finally shared one happy night with when her husband turned into a monster - and with the monster himself who took my head, as well as the orphan who is so much like her teacher."_

A single gunshot rang throughout the whole room, and blood splattered on my face. I think I screamed and fell to the floor, but I knew I was scrambling away from the fallen corpse of Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee, making away around so I was in front of my husband and in his arms.

"Oh, Herbert," I sobbed, desiring his hold more than ever. He returned it with a tighter squeeze around my torso. "You killed him."

"I did it for you," he answered. "Necessary. And no less than he deserved for marking me as the monster," he fumed.

An extra pair of arms - Dawn's - joined around us for a group hug, before she announced it. "Can we get out of here now? The bomb goes off in three minutes."

~o~

We were outside in time for the bunker to blow up from the inside right behind us, the leftover impact knocking us both on our stomachs and to the ground. The ground rumbled beneath us. Herbert had told me the other monsters inside were locked inside the intel room, which was where he'd found Dawn, and together they'd locked them all in there, since the door - like every other in the bunker - was powerful enough to keep them secured.

I looked up from the grassless ground with Herbert and Dawn, seeing the smoke coming out from the entrance. From the outside, in general, bunkers prevented explosions from the outside from injuring the senses and physical damage from the people inside. But their vulnerability was powerful explosives. I learned all of this from my service during the war, but that was beside the point. We were all alive, and the monsters of our past were buried where they should be.

"Herbert," I said, finally able to catch my breath. My lungs hurt a little from running, but the oxygen was returning. "I forgot to ask...the work?"

He looked at me and laughed. "You know, I haven't seen it since I escaped the crypt, now that you asked me. For all I know, it's buried there, and no one will ever find it...or maybe if they do, it will be after the dust from our bones will be gone."

"So, you're Dr. Herbert West." We both turned to look at Dawn. "Everyone thought you were dead."

He smiled at her. "They'll might as well continue to think that until I go back to them. But that also requires an excuse as to why the long absence." His smile faded, and he sighed, standing and dusting himself off. "But I think I'll worry about that for later." He looked down at me and smiled; I felt myself shrink and heat in both my flesh and blood like I first had when we were both students at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham. "The most important thing in the world is right here in front of me." I let myself be kissed by him, in front of poor Dawn who muttered the word please and started her way for the jeep, which seated three people.

I gently broke the kiss. "Let's go home, darling," I whispered, laughing when he agreed and picked me up like he did after we were married, and brought me to the vehicle so we could get the hell out of here and go home to rebuild our lives that didn't involve the dead and a long-gone green serum. I was ready for that, and to finally start the family I always wanted, which included myself, my loving husband Dr. Herbert West, and our new daughter Dawn who was so much like myself when I was that age.

Our story ends here, and while it was a tale of macabre and seemingly inescapable fear of the unknown, it was all conquered even if death couldn't be. But in the end, I had everything I ever wanted, and it was a family which was almost destroyed by a life of secrecy and death. In the end, Herbert West, Re-Animator, achieved his own salvation so he would have the happy ending he deserved with me.

**Whoo, I'm glad I finally finished. :D This was worth the challenge, and I'm happy with how it came out. Now that my latest Re-Animator story is out of the way, up next is a cherished Weyoun (Star Trek: Deep Space 9) story which I invented with my dear friend Windblazer Prime, so any fans of Jeffrey Combs, please look for that when the time comes for a put up. :D I don't know when it will be completed and published, but not too long. **


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